Olivet Girls Continue Reign as Peters Closes Championship-Filled Career
By
Todd VanSickle
Special for MHSAA.com
May 30, 2026
KENT CITY – After winning its first Finals championship in girls track & field a year ago by just five points, Olivet extended its title reign with another close finish Saturday at Kent City.
The Eagles scored 82 points at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 championship meet to outpace Lansing Catholic (76), with Pewamo-Westphalia (61.5) third.
“I am an alumni of the school, so to come back and do this is, is awesome,” Olivet head coach Brian Lincoln said. “We knew going in that it is was going to be a battle with Lansing Catholic. Our girls stepped up, like they have all season and for the past four seasons.”
Olivet senior Emily Peters claimed her fourth 300-meter hurdles title in 44 seconds. She qualified for this meet in seven events.
“It is pretty crazy,” said Peters said, who plans to run track for Northwood University next season. “Going into my freshman year, I knew I was pretty fast, but I never expected to have this kind of success.
“This is a perfect ending. It is the culmination of all my hard work. I am so grateful for this.”
Peters also took second in the 100-meter hurdles with a personal best of 14.83 seconds as the Eagles had success in several events.
Celina Sinclair won the 200 meters with a personal best of 24.91 seconds after finishing second in the prelims. The Eagles’ 400 relay team of Bailey Powell, Lola Miars, Peters and Sinclair took first place (49.51) over Kingsley (49.53) and Traverse City St. Francis (49.77). Olivet’s 800 relay team (Peters, Sinclair, Miars and Kendall Eggerstedt) also found the top spot on the podium (1:44.67).
Pewamo-Westphalia won the 3,200 relay (9:40.94) with Julia Paxton, Katherine Schafer, Adelyn Thelen and Calista George. Lansing Catholic was second and Saugatuck finished third.
Montrose’s Addyson Stiverson won the shot put with an all-Finals record of 55 feet, 6½ inches. The previous record (50-9½) was set in 2021 by Bryon’s Sarah Marvin.
Second place went to Pewamo-Westphalia’s Jenna Spitzley with a toss of 38-1¾. “If you would have asked me a week ago, I didn’t think I would have been in the 38 range,” Spitzley said.
The Pirates senior also won the discus with a throw of 136-7. She credited her family for her success.
“I had my brother there,” Spitzley said. “He has been coaching me a lot and helping me.”
She will attend Hillsdale College in the fall and plans to throw the shot put, discus and the hammer at the collegiate level.
Olivia Beaudrie, of Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central, won the high jump with a leap of 5-4. Julia Sergeant, of Houghton Lake, took first place in the pole vault clearing 11 feet after finishing sixth in the event last spring.
“I am really happy with my progress this year,” Sergeant said.
Despite being the top seed, she was a little nervous coming into meet.
“There were a few girls I was a little intimidated by,” Sergeant said. “There were two girls I have never seen vault before, but I knew what I was capable of and I did it.”
Novella DeGraff, of Saugatuck, had a personal best of 10-9 in the pole vault to finish second. She also finished third in the long jump with a personal best of 17-2. Smantha Hopkins, of Harrison, was first with a leap of 17-4¾.
Both of DeGraff’s marks in the field events set school records. It was the second year DeGraff had competed at the Finals, although she missed last season’s meet due to a torn knee ligament. She also ran a personal best in the 100-meter hurdles for third place (14.83).
“Today has been pretty chaotic,” DeGraff said. “I planned to try my best, but I didn’t expect I would do as good as I am. My mentality was to have a good time.”
Lansing Catholic’s Grace Wonch (4:58.84) and Josie Bishop (4:58.89) took first and second, respectively, with personal bests in the 1,600 meters. Bishop won the 800 meters (2:16.07), while Wonch took the bronze. Wonch also claimed the 3,200 meters (10:53.12) and Tiya Feldpausch, of Olivet, was second. (10:58.84).
The reigning 100 hurdles champion Julia Hughes repeated with a run of 14.55 seconds. She took third in the 300 hurdles.
Erie Mason senior Giuliana Nastale repeated as the 100 champion in 12.11 seconds. Sinclair, of Olivet, was second. Ella Clause, of Clinton, ran a personal best (57.99) to claim the 400. Centreville's Diannah Schwartz finished first in the 100, 200, 400 and shot put adaptive events.
PHOTOS (Top) Olivet's Emily Peters, center, clears a hurdle on the way to a runner-up finish in the 100 hurdles race Saturday. (Middle) Montrose's Addyson Stiverson launches the shot; she set the all-Finals record in the event. (Click for more from Mary Wilson and John Willoughby/RunMichigan.com.)
Northville's Abbott Takes Place with Stars
June 4, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
HUDSONVILLE — It was supposed to be the Sekayi Bracey and Anna Jefferson show.
And, to a great extent, it was.
Bracey added two more victories to her resume, finishing her outstanding career at East Kentwood with 10 individual championships in MHSAA track and field meets.
Jefferson led Oak Park to a third straight Lower Peninsula Division 1 team championship and all-division MHSAA Finals records in the 800 and 400 relays. The Knights had 81.5 points, while runner-up Ann Arbor Pioneer had 64.
While Bracey and Jefferson added to their legacies, Northville senior Chloe Abbott upstaged both all-time great Michigan sprinters by beating each of them head-to-head in events they've previously won.
First, Abbott ran 53.10 seconds to take down Jefferson in the 400-meter dash, an event Jefferson won in 2013 and 2014 before taking second in 2015. Jefferson took third Saturday.
Less than an hour later, Abbott pulled off a double that is extremely difficult under most circumstances, but more so considering her primary competition was going for her fourth MHSAA championship in the event. Yet, Abbott charged from behind to win the 200 in 24.03, while Bracey finished fourth in a race that featured six times of 24.51 seconds or faster.
Not yet worn out from those two exhausting races, Abbott anchored Northville to victory in the 1,600 relay, the final event, giving her three victories in the last six races of the day. She was also on the fourth-place 800 relay team, giving her a hand in 35 of third-place Northville's 50 points.
The first thing Abbott did after winning the 400 was try to forget about it.
"I talked to my friends," she said. "I relaxed myself a little bit, kind of numbed myself to the 400 zone. If you think about it for a long time, you're like, 'Wow, I did so good in the 400.' You kind of get comfortable with it. I wanted to forget it and focus on the 200. I'm so glad I was able to pull out another win. I'm surprising myself today."
Abbott didn't have the MHSAA Finals pedigree of Bracey or Jefferson.
In 2013, when Bracey and Jefferson were winning championships as freshmen, Abbott was 27th in the 200, her only event that year. She took sixth in the 100 and ninth in the 200 as a sophomore, while helping Northville get two top-three finishes in relays. As a junior, she was third in the 400 and seventh in the 200, adding a third-place finish on the 1,600 relay.
Abbott didn't beat Jefferson in the 400 until last summer, after the high school season.
"Ever since then, I didn't want to get beat by her again," Abbott said. "So, I kept pushing and knew I could do it."
Abbott had never beaten Bracey until Saturday.
"I never even dreamed of beating Sekayi," Abbott said. "I knew how great she was. She hasn't had a lot of competition all season. I figured she was going to come out and push it today, because she finally has some competition. I was nervous about that, because she's very good. I wanted to make sure I got that out of my head, forget about the people and just focus on my race and what I can control."
Bracey lost in a 200 final only once in her four-year career before Saturday, that coming her freshman year when Rockford's Sammy Cuneo beat her in the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Division 1 team championship meet.
"I don't even know what happened," Bracey said. "I was so frustrated when they were all coming up on me. I'm like, 'What's going on?' I never had that in my life. It was confusing."
Abbott and Bracey will be teammates at Purdue University beginning next season.
"I told her, '1 and 2, that's it, because now we're a team,'" Abbott said. "I wanted her and me to show out for Purdue and show out for our schools."
Bracey won the 100 for the fourth straight year in 12.08 seconds. She won her third long jump title with a leap of 18 feet, 10 inches. She jumped only once in the Finals to preserve herself for her track events.
Jefferson helped Oak Park break two all-division Finals records set by Detroit Mumford in 2005 with times of 1:36.66 in the 800 relay and 46.28 in the 400 relay.
"That was special," Oak Park coach Brandon Jiles said. "We knew we could run fast in the 4x1 and 4x2. It was all about putting it on the track. Those times are the fastest times by far that have been run in the state. For those kids to run that fast, they were really rolling. Everything had paid off, the hard work."
The Knights got off to a shaky start, with Jefferson failing to qualify for the championship race in the 100 hurdles and the 3,200 relay team placing out of the scoring with a ninth-place finish.
"It started out tough, but the kids were resilient and they fought and they showed they could win a tight meet, as opposed to a blowout like the last couple of years," Jiles said.
Oak Park's individual champions were sophomore Dorriann Coleman, who took the 800 in 2:10.20, and senior Brianna Holloway, who set a meet record in the 300 hurdles with a time of 42.71.
Greenville junior Landon Kemp was another of the stars of the meet. The highlight of her day was breaking the all-division Finals record in the pole vault with a leap of 13 feet, 4 inches. She also took second in the long jump at 18-5.5 and fifth in the 100 hurdles in 14.87.
Other individual champions were Ann Arbor Pioneer's Britten Bowen in the 100 hurdles (14.08); Port Huron's Rachel Bonner in the 1,600 (4:49.29); Farmington's Maddy Trevisan in the 3,200 (10:35.85); Grand Blanc's Quiara Wheeler in the discus (136-2); Grosse Pointe South's Kayli Johnson in the shot put (44-7.75); and Macomb Dakota's Kayla Dobies in the high jump (5-7).
Ann Arbor Pioneer won the 3,200 relay in 8:56.52.
PHOTOS: (Top) Northville's Chloe Abbott takes the lead on the way to one of her two championships Saturday. (Middle) East Kentwood's Sekayi Bracey won the ninth and 10th individual Finals titles of her career. (Below) Oak Park's 800 relay was among significant contributors to the team's overall LP Division 1 championship. (Photos by Carter Sherline and John Brabbs/RunMichigan.com.)