EAST LANSING---A change in format for the Michigan High School Athletic Association Baseball Tournament was among notable actions taken by the Representative Council during its annual Fall Meeting, in East Lansing, in addition to MHSAA basketball schedule changes for 2018-19 announced earlier this week.

Beginning with the 2019 tournament, baseball will move from its current one-day Saturday Regional and Quarterfinal the following Tuesday to a two-day “Super Regional” format.

The Super Regional will begin with a Regional Semifinal on the Wednesday following District Finals, followed by two Regional Finals at the same site on Saturday.

The winners of those two Regional Finals will then meet that same Saturday in a Super Regional championship game, with Super Regional winners then moving on directly to MHSAA Semifinals the following Thursday and Friday.

Both Regional champions will continue to receive trophies.

No trophy will be awarded for the Super Regional champion.

The MHSAA Softball Tournament, which runs concurrently with baseball’s event, will continue with the traditional schedule of Saturday Regionals followed by Tuesday Quarterfinals and then Semifinals and Finals the final weekend of the season.

The change for baseball is intended to provide teams more opportunities to use their top pitchers in the most meaningful games of the season, and was proposed by the MHSAA Baseball Committee prior to the Representative Council’s May 2017 meeting.

However, the proposal was tabled at that time to give MHSAA staff an opportunity to observe how a new pitch-count rule – mandated to begin with the 2017 season by the National Federation of State High School Associations – might figure into possible changes to the tournament schedule.