High School Athletes Prepare for Finals

The Plymouth Whalers are working their way to a playoff berth, but Compuware Arena will be humming on so-called off nights. The sounds of high school hockey games will pemeate the arena.

The Michigan High School boys hockey playoffs start with two games today: Novi against South Lyon at 5 p.m. and Brighton versus Detroit-Novi Catholic Central at 7:30 p.m. The winners of tonight's games face off on Wednesday at 7 p.m. On Friday and Saturday, the Whalers are back in action again on home ice.

But next week, the boys high school hockey semi-finals and rivals get underway, with games on March 10 and 11 and Division 1, 2 and 3 championships set to be played on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the 2011 State finals schedule for individual wrestlers kicks off with weigh-ins starting at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Matches begin at 2:15 p.m. and continue on a very long schedule Friday (the National Anthem is scheduled for 8:25 a.m. and the day closes after the 7 p.m. fifth-round semifinals) and Saturday, 8:25 a.m. to ninth-round finals that begin at 4:45 p.m.

Among the wrestlers competing are eight from the Plymouth-Canton Education Park: Canton freshman Ben Griffin in the 103-pound weight class, currently  54- 1; Plymouth junior Said Youssef, (125) 46-11; Plymouth sophomore Alec Breckenridge, (130)  34- 11; Salem sophomore Cody Korpus (119) 21-10; Canton junior Zach Marsh (140) 42-8; Canton senior Braden Price (171) 19- 7; Canton senior Anthony Abro (189) 56-0;  Canton senior Ben Poirier (285) 50-3.

Plymouth's boys bowling team heads to finals on Friday, along with a few individual girls from Plymouth and Salem's teams. On Saturday, Plymouth-Canton hosts a regional gymnastic final which starts at 10 a.m.