With the 2025-26 Michigan high school girls basketball season well underway, we’re featuring some of the best players in the state.

Earlier this week we featured the best forwards in Division 2.

Now we’re turning to readers to decide which forward will be the best of the best in Michigan Division 2 girls basketball in 2025-26.

Check out the write-ups on the top forwards in Division 2 and vote in the poll below the list of candidates.

The voting will conclude Friday, Jan. 30, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

We contacted basketball coaches across the state and asked them to fill out a survey requesting information about their team. These lists were compiled primarily based on the information provided by the coaches who chose to respond.

If you are a Michigan high school girls basketball coach who did not receive the survey, email mswanson@advancelocal.com. We will continue to add to these lists throughout the season.

THE CANDIDATES

Alexis Asekomeh, Grand Rapids West Catholic, Junior

Brynna Barnhart, Fremont, Senior

Tessa Bordogna, Notre Dame Prep, Junior

Jaya Chandler, Grand Rapids Catholic Central, Senior

Paris Davis, Detroit Southeastern, Senior

Christina Dixon, Haslett, Senior

Sadie Dykstra, Yale, Senior

Nuray Fricke, Big Rapids, Sophomore

Samantha Fuhs, Dearborn Divine Child, Junior

Peyton Hein, Spring Lake, Junior

Maddie Heverly, Brandon, Sophomore

Emma Highfield, Lake Fenton, Senior

Ruby Hughes, Newaygo, Junior

Kaitlyn Johnson, Haslett, Senior

Lillie Johnson, Gladstone, Senior

Maddy Lockard, Northpointe Christian, Senior

Elle Lorente, Eaton Rapids, Junior

Lillian Masters, Bay City John Glenn, Sophomore

Addison McDonald, Gaylord, Senior

Clare O’Donnell, Negaunee, Senior

Abby Prins, Grand Rapids South Christian, Sophomore

Peyton Rhoades, Pennfield, Senior

Aleigha Roberson, Portland, Junior

Emilee Robinson, Kingsley, Senior

Lauren Seeley, Alma, Senior

MaKayla Sykes, Detroit Country Day, Freshman

Caroline Torre, Warren Regina, Senior

Clare Westerlund, Whitehall, Junior

Amarah Zamora-Ledesma, Godfrey Lee, Senior

Paulo Sosa Garcia and Ramona Cecilia Silva were heading to work in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, on Monday morning when federal immigration agents pulled them over and arrested them. By the next morning, they were detained in El Paso, Texas.

Tomas Martinez Gregorio was driving his wife, Daisy Martinez, and their six-year-old son, Jayren, to a hospital in Brooklyn Park when federal agents pulled them over and took Gregorio. Jayren never made it to his tonsillectomy appointment.

About 3,000 federal agents are either operating in Minnesota or on their way to the region – seeking to arrest immigrants in what the Trump administration said was its largest enforcement operation thus far. More than 2,400 people in Minnesota have been arrested in recent weeks – and many have been swiftly moved to detention centers out of state, or removed from the country.

Some had valid visas and a right to be in the US, according to local leaders who have been responding to constituents affected by the raids and lawyers representing immigrants. The Guardian has confirmed that several refugees with legal status have been arrested in recent days after the Trump administration said it would “re-examine thousands of refugee cases”.

Many have been arrested in their neighborhoods – at home, on their way to work, at department stores and restaurants, outside schools and places of worship.

Their families are grappling with the aftermath.

“I just want for my parents to come back home,” said Cecilia Sosa, the eldest of Sosa Garcia and Silva’s three daughters.

Sosa Garcia and Silva came to the US from Mexico in 1999, and had been in a years-long process to obtain legal residency, according to their daughter. Five days before they were detained, they had been told that their case had been approved to move forward. Now their daughters are instead working to raise funds for lawyers’ fees to get them released from detention – posting a video on TikTok saying they are “living their worst nightmare”, which includes footage of their parents’ car on the side of the road with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles around it.

After nearly three decades in Minnesota, Cecilia Sosa’s parents started a cleaning business together in the last few years and had “flourished”, making connections and friends, she said. Their youngest daughter is 19, and they helped her with college expenses, and were caregivers for Cecilia Sosa’s grandfather, who just had a brain tumor removed.

Now the daughters have had minimal contact with their parents since 12 January. Sosa Garcia was able to call his daughters’ aunt to inform the family that he and his wife were detained. Silva sent a text message to one of her daughters telling her that she was detained and asked the family to call a lawyer. The couple are now being held separately at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, a massive tent facility in El Paso where human rights groups have alleged that detainees face physical abuse and unsafe conditions.

“I am not ready for them to leave,” Cecilia Sosa said. Her nine-year old son, whom her parents were helping her raise, asks frequently about them, she said: “We need them here.”

Daisy Martinez, whose husband, Tomas Martinez Gregorio, was detained on New Year’s Eve, said she has also struggled to explain to her son what happened to his stepfather. “He says every single day: ‘Can we get Tommy back?’ He tells his teacher: ‘Can you please save Tommy?’” she said.

The other night, her son told her he’d dreamed that his stepfather was back – and he was sad to wake up. “It just breaks my heart to hear a six-year-old say that they don’t want to wake up,” Martinez said.

Martinez and Gregorio had been married recently, in November. He is undocumented, from Mexico. Although Martinez is a US citizen, the couple had decided not to apply to adjust Gregorio’s immigration status during the Trump administration because they worried that an application would draw attention to him, and ICE would try to target him for deportation.

As more and more federal immigration agents deployed to the Twin Cities in December, Martinez had worried about Gregorio. Still, they hadn’t expected three cars with ICE agents to corner their vehicle as they were driving to the hospital.

Martinez tried to talk them down – but the agents, who were armed, demanded that Gregorio get out of the car. Video footage that Martinez recorded, reviewed by the Guardian, captured her pleading with them to let Gregorio go, and an agent telling her that her husband had a DUI on his record.

Later, an immigration agent told her that her husband did not in fact have a criminal record – and Daisy said she hasn’t been given a reason for why exactly her family was targeted.

When Martinez tried to chase after her husband, who was being ushered into an agent’s car, several other agents tackled her against the car and pinned her arms behind her, she said.

“And then they left,” she said.

Martinez then noticed her son shaking and screaming in the back seat. She briefly blacked out. When she came to, she called her cousin.

“We were two minutes away from the hospital,” she said. “We never made it to the surgery.”

Panicked, Martinez and her cousin tried to find Gregorio by tracking the location-sharing feature on his phone and realized he had been taken – like many immigrants arrested in the region – to the ICE facility at Fort Snelling, a former military fortification in south Minnesota. After that, he was transferred to a county jail in Sherburne county, a 40-minute drive from the couple’s home.

In the weeks since, she has been scrambling to figure out how to get her husband released – and how to parent and survive without him. He worked in the insulation industry and had made a good salary, allowing Martinez to work part-time and focus on childcare, she said.

Ever since agents tackled her, she said, an old injury on her foot has been acting up, making it difficult for her to walk or stand for long periods. That, combined with insomnia and the trauma of Gregorio’s arrest, has made it difficult for her to do her job as a part-time supervisor for a fast-food chain.

“I’m the child of an immigrant, I’m the wife of an immigrant,” she said. “My son was born in Mexico … so I’m basically the mom of an immigrant,” she said. “And [ICE] made me feel like my citizenship doesn’t matter any more. My social status doesn’t mean anything, my passport doesn’t mean anything.”

Still, she said, she tries to watch out for her friends and neighbors without citizenship. In the past few weeks, she has been making regular runs to the gas station to fill up their cars, making grocery runs for whoever needs it. Each time she hears or sees cars that may belong to immigration agents, she rushes outside to check who they’re after.

“I basically tell everyone here: ‘I couldn’t save my husband, but I could probably save you,’” she said.

Missouri lawmakers debated two bills this week that would align the state with the federal limits on intoxicating hemp products set to go into effect in November.

Both Missouri bills would prohibit hemp products from containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container, which is among the limits included in a provision in the federal spending bill Congress approved last year.

They both would regulate intoxicating hemp the same as marijuana, which would essentially ban current hemp products because marijuana must be grown in Missouri and most hemp is grown outside of the state. They would also require hemp products to be sold in licensed cannabis dispensaries, where most are currently sold in gas stations, liquor stores, restaurants and smoke shops.

State officials estimated in 2024 that 40,000 food establishments and smoke shops and 1,800 food manufacturers were selling products that would be banned under the proposed federal regulations. It includes low-dose THC seltzers, such as Mighty Kind and Triple, that have increased in popularity at liquor stores and bars.

While business owners selling these products oppose the federal ban, some said they’re putting their support behind a proposal by Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon because it would allow Missouri to sell the products if Congress changes its mind in the future.

A House committee discussed Hinman’s legislation Tuesday, Jan. 13, making it one of the first bills to get a public hearing during the new legislative session that began last week.

“The bottom line for us is, if it’s authorized and it’s lawful under federal law, we should be able to sell it here in Missouri, just like all the other 49 states will be able to sell it,” said Ron Leon, executive director of the Missouri Petroleum and Convenience Association, which represents gas stations and convenience stores, during the hearing Tuesday evening.

The other bill, proposed by Republican state Sen. David Gregory of Chesterfield, does not include this provision. Another difference in Gregory’s bill is that it includes an emergency clause, meaning it would be enacted as soon as lawmakers approve it and the governor signs it.

“Now it’s time for us to ensure the safety of our kids, regardless of what Congress did or will be doing in the future,” Gregory said during the Senate committee hearing Wednesday morning. “And we need to prohibit intoxicating cannabis from being sold anywhere except for the way our voters designed it and requested it be sold. And that’s exactly what this bill seeks to do.”

The Missouri Cannabis Trade Association, which represents marijuana businesses, has put its support behind both bills. The Missouri Hemp Trade Association, which represents a number of hemp businesses, spoke in opposition to Gregory’s bill but was neutral on Hinman’s bill.

This will be the fourth year in a row that Missouri lawmakers have attempted to regulate intoxicating hemp products, with previous debates ending in stalemates. 

However, Hinman said this is a priority for the state’s leadership.

“I met with [Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway] last week, and she thinks this needs to be a priority,” Hinman told The Independent. “I believe the governor is the same and the speaker (of the House) is the same, so I think it’s going to move pretty quick.”

The Law Enforcement Legislative Coalition, which represents police chiefs across Missouri, is supporting both bills. Lake Saint Louis Police Department Chief Chris DiGiuseppi emphasized at both the Senate and House committee hearings this week that the federal provision does not give local police authority to enforce the ban, which is why the state bills are necessary.

“In order to enforce federal law, we’d have to go to a federal law enforcement agency,” DiGiuseppi told the state Senate committee members Wednesday. “We would have to get others involved. We can only enforce state statute. That’s what we’re empowered to do.”

State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, asked DiGiuseppi how difficult it would be to enforce the federal ban if Missouri lawmakers fail to pass regulations again this year.

“It would be much more difficult,” DiGiuseppi said. “It’s always easier to try to take care of that in house … so we appreciate all the help we can get.”