Paying Tribute with Diamond Donation
May 14, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Rochester Adams and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood baseball players and coaches both had loved ones on their minds when they took the field at Comerica Park earlier this month.
And they paid tribute to those loved ones over their hearts and across the backs of their jerseys.
Together, the teams raised more than $3,500 for the Coaches vs. Cancer research initiative.
Instead of its usual brown and yellow, Adams wore jerseys of light blue with a green ribbon as the middle “A” in its name across the front in honor of those suffering with lymphoma, including 2011 graduate and former standout Matt Williams.
Cranbrook-Kingswood wore dark blue jerseys with a pink ribbon as the “A” in Cranbrook and with lime green writing on the back as the Cranes remembered longtime coach Jack Sanders, who died in 2012 after also battling lymphoma.
Sanders’ was among names adorning the backs of jerseys, along with other cancer victims the players and coaches knew.
Adams won the May 1 game, 18-3. Click to read more from the Oakland Press’ Keith Dunlap, who leading up to the game detailed both Williams’ fight and Sanders’ longtime contributions.
Net finder
Lake Fenton’s Jordan Newman will finish her high school soccer career later this spring as the top goal-scorer in MHSAA girls soccer history.
The Blue Devils’ senior forward broke the career record on April 28, scoring her 169th goal against Perry to pass the mark set by Newaygo’s Jaleen Dingledine from 2004-07. Newman also is a four-year varsity player.
Click to read more on her record run from the Flint Journal's Eric Woodyard.
5 K, 1 IP
The MHSAA doesn't keep a record for most strikeouts in an inning. But if it did, there’s a great chance Brighton’s Garrett Russell would top the list.
Against Ann Arbor Pioneer on April 5, Russell struck out five batters in an inning.
Yes, five.
Here’s how:
Russell struck out the first two batters of the inning swinging, leaving one out to get. He then struck out that third batter as well, but that batter reached first base because the third strike turned into a wild pitch.
The fourth batter of the inning was the only one to not strike out – he walked, putting runners on first and second base with two outs. Those runners advanced to second and third base, respectively, on a wild pitch thrown to the fifth batter of the inning.
That fifth batter then struck out swinging (which made it four strikeouts in the inning), but that third strike turned into a passed ball – and that batter ended up on first base, loading them for the sixth hitter of the inning.
But Russell found enough for one more K, striking out that sixth hitter swinging on a 2-2 pitch.
His line for the inning: 0 hits, 0 runs, 1 bases on balls, 5 strikeouts.
Brighton went on to sweep the doubleheader 12-4 and 11-1.
Family ties
Basketball clearly runs in a pair of families who have come through Corunna High School.
This winter, brothers M.J. and Mikhail Myles both scored their 1,000th career points – M.J., a senior, on Jan. 3 and Mikhail, a junior, in the team’s District Semifinal on March 5.
On Feb. 18, senior Payton Birchmeier became the fifth player in girls program history to score her 1,000th point – despite scoring only four points as a freshman before suffering a season-ending knee injury in her first high school game. She became the first Corunna girl to score 1,000 since her sister Megan finished accomplishing the feat in 2010.
Payton Birchmeier went on to play her final three seasons also on varsity, and M.J. Myles also was a four-year varsity player. Mykhail Myles has played three on varsity with next season still to play. The Myles' stepsister Klarissa Bell this winter finished an outstanding career at Michigan State University and won the Miss Basketball Award as a senior at East Lansing High School in 2010, and stepbrother Devlin Bell also was a Trojans standout.
PHOTOS: (Top) Rochester Adams players congratulate each other during their May 1 game at Comerica Park. (Middle) The Adams' first baseman and a Cranbrook-Kingswood base runner await the next pitch. (Photos courtesy of Rochester Adams baseball.)
Midland's Spears Catches Up Quickly to Become Nationally-Recognized Finals Contender
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
January 22, 2026
Halle Spears may have had a later start when it comes to wrestling, but she’s starting to lap the field.
The Midland senior is a three-time placer at the MHSAA Individual Finals and ranked No. 3 in the country at her weight class, all despite not starting until her freshman year.
“It was good to start off with a good, athletic, foundational base,” said Midland wrestling coach Mike Donovan, who oversees the school’s program as a whole and coaches the boys in competition. “She had done other sports before, and that helped her a great deal. When she really kind of committed to finding high results in wrestling, it really took off. She kind of made eight seasons of work into her four here with all of her offseason work, lifting and practices. She caught up on the experience very fast.”
Spears was the Finals Girls Division runner-up at 190 pounds in 2025, and has packed in multiple seasons’ worth of experience at major tournaments since then.
During the offseason, she placed fourth at Fargo Nationals, won the Super 32 Challenge in Greensboro, N.C., and placed fifth at the Midlands Championships, an open tournament in Evanston, Ill., that features some of the best collegiate competition in the country.
“I was just kind of looking for college tournaments and to go where I thought I could get good competition,” Spears said. “I could still get better wrestling here, but it would be so much more fun to wrestle somewhere with really, really good competition.”
It’s an incredibly quick rise from the volleyball player and former gymnast who took up wrestling after some convincing from her older brother Hunter, who also happens to be the Midland girls wrestling coach.
“At first, I did not want to do wrestling at all,” she said. “My main sport was volleyball, but my parents have this rule that you have to have two sports every year, so I was like, ‘I guess I’ll do wrestling since my brother is the coach.’ Then I ended up loving it so much.”
A big part of that love is getting to work with her brother. Hunter wrestled at Midland and graduated in 2019, and said his style was a very different one from how his sister wrestles. But as she’s grown in the sport, he’s adapted his own style to better prepare Halle.
“I think that the first year it was kind of frustrating because we were always siblings, and now he had a little more authority over me and he had to figure out how to coach me,” Halle said. “After that first year, it was so fun because we just got to hang out every day. It means so much to me, I love him so much and I’m grateful he has spent this time to figure out how I want to wrestle, and put in the time to learn it and adapt to it with me. I’m so grateful.”
Now, Spears is ranked No. 3 nationally at 190 pounds by FloWrestling. She’s 12-0 this high school season with nine pins, one technical fall and two major decisions. She’s ranked No. 2 at 235 pounds by Michigan Grappler, a ranking that should flip in the next update, as she recently defeated the No. 1 wrestler, AnnMarie Green of Clare, 12-3 at the Girls Wolfpack Challenge in Bay City.
“She’s constantly comparing herself to the people that are above her,” Hunter Spears said. “She’s chasing an image of Sabrina Nauss (three-time MHSAA champion from Brighton) that led Team Michigan to such great things. She’s super confident when she’s wrestling her peers right now, but she hasn’t let (the national success) get to her head in a way. She’s still fighting for something.”
That something, partially, is a title at the MHSAA Finals.
Spears placed fourth at 190 pounds as a freshman and sixth as a sophomore.
Her junior year ended in the Finals with a 4-2 loss against Kanata Richardson of Bloomfield Hills, who is currently ranked fifth nationally at 190.
“I don’t really think about it that much anymore,” Spears said. “At first, it didn’t really motivate me, it just made me really sad. After, I sort of just started to let it go. I don’t really think about it anymore. I just want to get better for myself.”
Winning it all at Ford Field on March 7 to become Midland’s first female Finals champion, and first in general since 1994, would mean a lot to Spears. But she also now sees it as another step on her bigger journey, which includes wrestling collegiately at Grand Valley State University.
“It would be really nice to have my name on the banner and have my name in the trivia that Donovan does every year,” she said. “But I think somewhere last year after I lost my state finals match, it started to matter a little less to me. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I realized there are so much bigger things to strive for. It would be great, and I would be so thankful to get a state title. But sometimes, I think there are bigger things, and I’d rather strive for a national championship.”
As she continues working toward that, she continues to set an example for those who come behind her, no matter when they start.
“Just to kind of show that opportunity does exist here to do the biggest things in the sport and be on top of that,” Donovan said. “It’s not a sport where, if you didn’t do it as a youth you’re completely lost in terms of any kind of top goals. If you put the time in and the dedication in, while it can be a bit delayed and growth isn’t always linear in our sport, but given that example, that roadmap, if you invest in yourself, that will do a lot for future Chemics wrestlers.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Midland’s Halle Spears, in blue, wrestles during the Girls Wolfpack Challenge. (Middle) Halle takes a quick photo with her older brother and coach Hunter Spears. (Photos courtesy of the Spears family.)