Sports · Royal Oak
Shrine Catholic hosts Cardinal Mooney Friday in the Division 8 playoffs, a rematch of the Knights’ 38-7 win in October
ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Royal Oak Shrine Catholic starts its state playoff run at home Friday night against a team it has already handled once this season.
The Knights (8-1) host Marine City Cardinal Mooney (6-3) in a Division 8 District Semifinal at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, at Shrine Catholic, 3500 W. 13 Mile Road, according to the game’s ticket listing. Tickets are $8 and, like all MHSAA playoff tickets before the finals, are sold online only through GoFan.
The seeding. Shrine’s playoff-point average of 39.778 ranks second among the eight teams in Region 4 of Division 8, behind only Madison Heights Madison (45.111), according to the MHSAA pairings. Cardinal Mooney’s 25.889 ranks seventh. Under MHSAA rules, the higher-ranked team hosts each of the first three rounds no matter how far apart the schools are, and in district semifinals the No. 2 seed hosts No. 7.
The first meeting. The teams met Saturday, Oct. 3, at Cardinal Mooney, and Shrine won 38-7. Running back Jaycee Foster ran for 239 yards and three touchdowns on just 14 carries, and the Knights intercepted two passes, by Luke Robinson and Henry Novack, according to MaxPreps. That win moved Shrine to 6-0. The week before, the Knights routed Mount Clemens 49-6.
Coming off a loss. Shrine’s only defeat came last Saturday, Oct. 24, when Clarkston Everest Collegiate beat the Knights 34-7 in the Catholic High School League Cardinal championship game at Ford Field. It was Everest’s eighth straight win, MaxPreps reported. Friday is the first chance to show whether that loss lingers.
Who could be next. Everest Collegiate (8-1), the region’s No. 3 seed by playoff points, sits in the same district and hosts Allen Park Cabrini (5-4) in the other semifinal. If Shrine and Everest both win, they would meet again in the district final the weekend of Nov. 6-7, a rematch Shrine fans will be watching for. The other Region 4 district pairs Sterling Heights Parkway Christian (5-4) at Madison and Burton Atherton (6-3) at Southfield Bradford Academy (6-3).
The road from there runs through regional finals Nov. 13-14 and semifinals Nov. 20-21 at MHSAA-assigned neutral sites. The Division 8 final is set for 9:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 27, at Ford Field, the same field where Shrine played last weekend.
If you go. Buy tickets ahead of time on GoFan; MHSAA playoff tickets are sold online only. The game falls the night before Halloween, and the forecast for metro Detroit calls for a partly cloudy Friday night with a low near 48, according to the National Weather Service as of Tuesday evening.
Sources:
MHSAA, “2026 MHSAA Football Playoff Pairings Announced” (pairings, playoff-point averages, hosting rules, schedule, ticket prices, finals times), https://www.mhsaa.com/sports/football/stories/2026-mhsaa-football-playoff-pairings-announced
GoFan, “MHSAA Football District Semifinal 127 Marine City Cardinal Mooney vs. Royal Oak Shrine Catholic” (date, time, location, price), https://gofan.co/event/6997054
MaxPreps, “Football Recap: Shrine Catholic Skates Past Cardinal Mooney Catholic with Ease” (Oct. 3 result and stats, earlier results), https://www.maxpreps.com/news/eAYOvzReq0mSLuyhWZF4lQ/football-recap-shrine-catholic-skates-past-cardinal-mooney-catholic-with-ease.htm
MaxPreps, “Football Recap: Everest Collegiate Adds Another Dominant Win to Their Ledger” (Oct. 24 result), https://www.maxpreps.com/news/52VsJ61760aXnRnxnpH8zw/football-recap-everest-collegiate-adds-another-dominant-win-to-their-ledger.htm
The Oakland Press, photos of the 2026 CHSL Cardinal championship game, Oct. 24, 2026, https://www.theoaklandpress.com/2026/10/24/photos-of-the-2026-chsl-cardinal-championship-football-game-between-no-3-royal-oak-shrine-and-no-10-clarkston-everest-collegiate/
National Weather Service forecast, Detroit, https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.3314&lon=-83.0458
Photo: Michael Barera, “Highland Park vs. Royse City football 2017 27 (Highland Park on offense).jpg,” Nov. 3, 2017, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative shared under the same license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Highland_Park_vs._Royse_City_football_2017_27_(Highland_Park_on_offense).jpg
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