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High School

Oral history: How the MIAA’s Super 8 was born six years ago

In crowning five champions, Massachusetts’ Division 1A tournament has proven to be a big hit, but its success was never a given. The creators recount its origins.

By Craig FordeJune 11, 2019

(Photos: Dave Arnold/New England Baseball Journal)

In the summer of 2013, then Lincoln-Sudbury head coach Kirk Fredericks put into action a plan that he and his father, Don, had been batting around for some time.

In an effort to give Massachusetts high school baseball a shot in the arm, a proposal was formed to introduce a double-elimination tournament, as part of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, consisting of the top teams in the state, in the vein of the Division 1A tournament held in hockey, more affectionately known as the Super 8.

It was around this time when there were rumblings of separating Catholic schools from the public schools altogether on the sports landscape, due to a growing dominance across the board.

Despite the numbers, Kirk Fredericks believed that a tournament that could include those top programs alongside the best on the public side, would generate great buzz and prove that separation was not necessary.

Tags: High School Baseball, MIAA, Super Eight

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