10 to Remember: Spring 2013
June 25, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Nine teams won their first MHSAA championships this spring. Birmingham Brother Rice's boys lacrosse team won its ninth in a row.
And those are only among the toppers of the long list that made memorable moments during this season's Finals, which finished up the school year two weekends ago.
Locking down the 10 most significant performances is impossible. But endeavoring to do so, here are one person's guess at those that will continue to be discussed most in the years to come.
Among those that just missed this list: Brother Rice boys lacrosse, St. Ignace's girls track and field team after winning its fourth straight team title, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett's baseball team after its extra-innings Final win over Beal City, Grandville Calvin Christian's girls soccer team after winning a rematch of last season's Division 4 Final and Port Huron Northern's girls tennis team after it emerged from a loaded field to win the Lower Peninsula Division 1 title.
Sami Michell Shines Once More
In her final high school meet, Reed City senior Sami Michell won four more MHSAA Finals individual titles to finish her career with 12 – two more than the previous Lower Peninsula record. A year after becoming the second female to win four events at one Finals meet, she did so again by finishing first in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles, the 200 dash and the long jump. She scored 40 points to claim the team runner-up trophy for her school. Click to read more.
Best Class of All-Time?
That could be the argument for this season’s girls track and field seniors, as twins Hannah and Haley Meier and Erin Finn joined Sami Michell, Detroit Country Day's Kendall Baisden and a host of others in finishing their careers. The Meiers already are members of a national record-holding relay (which set its milestone in 2012), and Hannah won two more Division 1 individual titles (setting all-Finals records) while Haley placed in the same two races and joined her sister on two winning relays. West Bloomfield’s Finn, considered as well one of the nation’s top high school distance runners, finished third to the Meiers in the Division 1 1,600 before cutting nine seconds off her 2012 time in setting an all-Finals record in the 3,200. Click to read more.
Warriors Earn First Title for Winning Coach
Bay City Western’s baseball team strung together two 1-0 shutouts by pitchers Brett Adcock and then Connor Foley to claim its first MHSAA baseball championship – and the first to go with coach Tim McDonald’s other 563 wins over the last 21 seasons. The 1-0 championship game victory over Brother Rice was Western's 35th straight of the season; Western finished 42-2. Click to read more.
Gull Lake Soccer Makes Mark
Richland Gull Lake hadn’t played in a girls soccer Final since 1999, but survived two overtimes against reigning champion Bloomfield Hills Marian to win the Division 2 championship game 1-0. The title was Gull Lake’s first since 1992 and came against a program that not only won in 2012, but three of the last five Division 2 championships. Click to read more.
Upper Peninsula Ace Shoots Record Round
Snow and rain put a damper on a good portion of the girls golf season in the Upper Peninsula this spring. But no U.P. female golfer has ever finished as strongly as Marquette’s Avery Rochester. She claimed her second straight individual Finals championship with a U.P. Finals-record 69, which was three under par at Portage Lake Golf Course in Houghton. Her score also was just one more stroke than the all-Finals record of 68 shot by Grandville’s Stacy Snider in 1998. Click to read more.
7 ... 2 ... 1 ... Champion Tecumseh
Tecumseh entered the MHSAA Tournament after finishing the regular season an honorable mention in the Division 2 softball coaches poll. But the Indians defeated No. 1 Stevensville Lakeshore in the Quarterfinal, reigning champion and No. 2 Livonia Ladywood in the Semifinal and No. 7 Saginaw Swan Valley in the Final to claim their first championship since 2008. Click to read more.
Bishop Foley Sets Baseball Bar
Madison Heights Bishop Foley claimed its third straight Division 3 baseball championship to become the first in MHSAA baseball history to win that many consecutive titles. Bishop Foley is 112-8-1 over the last three seasons and finished 35-2-1 this spring. The Ventures outscored their Bailey Park competition by a combined 18-5 over Finals weekend – getting junior Garrett Schilling to 15-0 for this season and 31-0 for his career with a 6-0 Semifinal win. Click to read more.
Done Deal for Dundee
The Dundee softball team eliminated two-time reigning champion Clinton on the way to Bailey Park this spring, and then beat three-time champion Unionville-Sebewaing in the Division 3 Final to claim its first MHSAA championship in the sport. In the process, Dundee finished 45-1 – setting an MHSAA record for wins in a softball season. Click to read more.
Troy Moves Up to No. 1
After two-straight Division 1 runner-up finishes, Troy earned its first girls soccer championship since 2003 with a 2-1 Final win over Grandville. The Colts had been outscored a combined 3-0 in the last two MHSAA Division 1 Finals, and began this season 3-6-2 before rattling off 15 wins and a tie on the way to claiming the championship. Click to read more.
Tie-Breaker After Heart-Breaker
The Battle Creek Lakeview boys golf team had finished one stroke behind Birmingham Brother Rice at the 2012 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final, and found itself tied with Plymouth this month after the final round was complete. But thanks to a fifth-player tie-breaker, Lakeview claimed its first MHSAA championship since 2008. Click to read more.
Greenville's Martin Finds Future as On-Air Voice for Local Radio Broadcasts
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
March 20, 2026
Gracelin Martin can actually point to the moment where she glimpsed the rest of her professional life.
The current Greenville senior had just completed her first full season of working as a play-by-play broadcaster for radio station WGLM, and her watchful eyes took in the moments following a tense Lowell-Greenville basketball game. If she hadn't figured it out before, it dawned on Martin she loved it all: the back-and-forth of the game's action, the noisy crowd and the responsibility of detailing into a live mic what she was witnessing while looking forward to interviewing the participants afterward.
It was right about that moment that Martin decided the whole frantic atmosphere would be paramount in her future.
"I felt very accomplished," she said. "I didn't think a person so young could be in this role. I was kind of proud of myself."
Martin wasn't even 18 years old when longtime Greenville public address announcer and WGLM employee Bill Wilson noticed this eager young teenager with obvious people-person skills chatting easily with friends when an idea popped into his mind. The station needed someone to replace Serena Schroeder, another young student sideline reporter at Greenville football and basketball games who was going off to Michigan State. Wilson engaged Martin, and his suspicions were quickly confirmed. This, Wilson thought, was what he was seeking.
"He said I had this bubbly personality and would I consider broadcasting football and basketball games," said Martin, a basketball, track and cross country letter winner at Greenville. "Without hesitating, I said yes. I was 100-percent down with it.
"I saw an opportunity and took it. I never knew what could come of it."
So despite being just a 15-year-old high school sophomore with absolutely no radio background, Martin quickly fell in love with everything about the business of being a sideline reporter in football and a play-by-play broadcaster in basketball.
Wilson, who works Greenville football, basketball, track and soccer games, said he knew nothing of Martin at first except remembering seeing her play varsity basketball as a freshman. It wasn't her voice, mannerisms or really anything else that immediately leaped out at him. It was simply a sixth sense about matching up an obviously effervescent personality with a microphone.
"I had never met her, but I knew we were looking for someone to replace Serena and things just kind of clicked," he said. "She has this good personality, I thought she could be the one. She said she was interested, and it went from there."
Martin admits there was a definite gamble in being a teenage novice with a microphone thrust in front of her mixing with longtime coaches and athletes who doubled as high school friends. Would she freeze, stutter, flub questions, seem obviously underqualified or, worst of all, unprepared?
But by doing her homework and always being prepared, Martin found she easily could hit on the information she needed through interviews.
"The thought definitely crossed my mind," she said of the whole idea being a gamble. "I didn't know football inside-out like I knew basketball. I put pressure on myself to learn. But really, I felt ease from the beginning."
Dixon Huiet works as a WGLM analyst for Greenville football broadcasts. Part of a three-person crew, Huiet said Martin has an innate ability to grasp what intricacies fans need to know about what's happening on a football field or basketball court. The ability to pair the flow of a game with what fans want to know about what's happening is critical, he said.
"She's very fluid in understanding what needs to happen as a sideline reporter," he said. "And she knows how to step up, take the lead in broadcasting the play-by-play of a basketball game.
"She's come so far. She understands where to go and if she doesn't get the answer she wants, she can pivot. She's worked at it and evolved, and that's a skill."
Martin is astute enough to recognize where she can find help in improving as a broadcaster. She's noticed, for instance, how ESPN and ABC broadcaster Holly Rowe or the Big Ten Network's Dannie Rogers conduct their business on TV. Toss in tips from Schroeder, who recently graduated from Michigan State with a communications degree, and the confidence shown by Wilson and Huiet, and Martin feels comfortable in the business.
All broadcasters start somewhere, and Martin knows she's lucky enough to have started by interviewing coaches and athletes she's known for years. It's a crucial early stepping-stone which Martin doesn't underestimate.
"I knew a lot of the coaches and players from school and watched women like Holly and Dannie, and I thought this was something I could do," she said. "Honestly, you see a lot of females on TV, and bringing them into the broadcast business is a good thing. I enjoy learning from people who are better than me."
Martin’s upcoming plans include running cross country and track while entering Cornerstone University's communication program.
After honing skills in college, Martin said, who knows where her path will lead?
"I feel like not everything will be easy," she said, "but this will set me up and pave the road ahead."
PHOTOS (Top) Gracelin Martin interviews Greenville football coach Scott McDougall during a game this past season. (Middle) Martin receives “Senior Night” recognition from WGLM’s Bill Wilson and Will Wydeck this winter. (Below) Martin describes the action for her audience. (Photos provided by the Greenville athletic department.)