Michigan
Meet the finalists for the 2024 Michigan Miss Volleyball Award
The finalists for the 2024 Michigan Miss Volleyball Award have been named.
The high school seniors were nominated by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association. The award was first sponsored by the Free Press in 2003.
Here are this year’s 10 nominees, in alphabetical order:
Isabelle Busignani
School: Birmingham Marian.
Position: Outside hitter.
Height: 6 feet 1.
Career stats: 1,270 kills, 761 digs, 125 aces, .307 hitting percentage
The buzz: Busignani was a first-team all-state, first-team all-region, and first-team all-Catholic League player as a sophomore and junior. She’s also No. 26 in the country on PrepVolleyball’s class of 2025 rankings and helped Marian win Division 1 championships in 2021 and 2022.
College plans: Busignani will be attending Cincinnati.
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Jessica Costlow
School: Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central.
Position: Outside hitter.
Height: 5-10.
Career stats: 1,469 kills, 1,247 digs, 139 aces, 90 blocks, .352 hitting percentage.
The Buzz: Costlow received first-team all-state honors in 2022 and 2023, after getting a second-team all-state nod as a freshman in 2021. Her squad won district championships from 2021-2023 and was the runner-up in the 2021 state title game.
College plans: Costlow will attend Toledo, where she will continue to play volleyball and study biomedical engineering.
Ella Craggs
School: Northville.
Position: Setter.
Height: 5-10.
Career stats: 2,549 Assists, 457 kills, 865 digs.
The buzz: Craggs is a two-time all-conference player in the Kensington Lakes Activities Association and made the MHSAA All-Region team in 2022 and 2023. Northville won district and regional championships in 2022 and 2023, and were the Division 1 state runners-up in 2022.
College plans: Craggs will attend Illinois State.
Campbell Flynn
School: Farmington Hills Mercy.
Position: Setter.
Height: 6-3.
2023 Stats: 553 assists, 35 serving aces, 1.3 aces per set, .409 hitting percentage.
The buzz: Flynn was the 2023 Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year, a MIVCA first-team all-state player in 2022 and 2023 and a third-team all-state player in 2021. Flynn is also a member of the 2024 USA Volleyball under-21 national team. She won a state championship in 2023 and a district championship in 2022.
College plans: Flynn will attend Nebraska on a volleyball scholarship.
Navea Gauthier
School: Shelby.
Position: Outside hitter.
Height: 6-1.
Career Stats: 2,801 kills, 345 aces, 1,490 digs, 138 blocks.
The buzz: A three-time all-state, all-region and all-conference player, Gauthier has helped her team to three conference championships, two district championships and one regional championship. Gauthier is on pace to set the Michigan record for all-time kills, according to coach Thomas R. Weirich.
College plans: Gauthier has verbally committed to Ohio State.
Victoria Gray
School: Temperance Bedford.
Position: Middle blocker.
Height: 6-2.
2023 stats: 467 kills, 251 digs, 119 blocks.
The buzz: Gray’s numbers have increased steadily, and it shows in the team’s records. Gray joined Bedford in 2021 and posted 100 kills and 90 digs, and Bedford finished with a 49-14-4 record;. Her sophomore year, the team finished 41-12-2, and Gray tripled her kills and nearly doubled her digs. Last year, the team finished 62-4 and became district champions.
College plans: Gray will attend Indiana.
Olivia Grenadier
School: Birmingham Detroit Country Day.
Position: Middle blocker.
Height: 6-1.
Career stats: None provided.
The buzz: Grenadier helped her team to a 2021 regional championship. She has received honors throughout her career including 2022 first-team all-state and all-region selections and a 2023 all-region nod. In 2022, she recorded the school’s single season kills record (367 kills).
College plans: Grenadier will Colorado on a volleyball scholarship.
Shelby Ignash
School: Cass City.
Position: Middle blocker.
Height: 6-1.
Career stats: 1,388 kills, 180 blocks*, 643 digs* (*sophomore and junior year stats).
The buzz: In 2022, Ignash helped Cass City win its first regional championship since 1977. Ignash is a multiple first-team all-state and all-region player and made the 2023 MHSAA Division 3 All-Tournament Dream Team.
College plans: Ignash has committed to Texas Tech, where she plans on majoring in social work.
McKenna Payne
School: Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central.
Position: Libero/outside hitter/setter.
Height: 5-7.
Career stats: 809 kills, 1,254 digs, 174 aces, 1,089 assists.
The buzz: Payne has multiple MIVCA all-state honors spanning across her various positions. Last year, she, along with Costlow, lead their team to a 33-9-1 record and a Huron League championship.
College plans: Payne will attend Utah on a volleyball scholarship.
Cassidy Pratley
School: Harper Creek.
Position: Middle blocker.
Height: 6-1.
2023 stats: 707 kills, 105 blocks.
The Buzz: Pratley was the team captain and MVP last season as she earned all-state, all-region and all-conference honors.
College plans: Pratley will attend Western Michigan to continue playing volleyball.
Authorities are asking for the public’s assistance to find a missing Oakland County teen who is considered endangered.
Adrianna Smith, 15, was last seen in the 3500 block of South Fenton Road, just south of the city of Holly in northwest Oakland County, according to Michigan State Police.
She is believed to have left her home in a 2002 Jeep Liberty with an adult male, possibly a man named Derek Girtman, MSP said.
Smith is described as having blonde hair and green eyes. She is about 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 160 pounds. She has one tattoo above her right knee and another on her left ankle.
Anyone with information about Adrianna’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or the MSP Metro North Post at either (800) 495-4677 or (989) 370-8926.
The supreme court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an ageing pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that the Enbridge energy company waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.
The case is part of a messy legal dispute about a pipeline that has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953.
Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, sued in state court in June 2019 seeking to void the easement that allows Enbridge to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4km) section of pipeline under the straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Nessel, a Democrat, won a restraining order shutting down the pipeline from Ingham county judge James Jamo in June 2020, although Enbridge was allowed to continue operations after meeting safety requirements.
Enbridge moved the lawsuit into federal court in 2021, arguing it affects US and Canadian trade. But a three-judge panel from the sixth US circuit court of appeals sent the case back to Jamo in June 2024, finding that the company missed a 30-day deadline to change jurisdictions.
The pipeline at issue is called Line 5. Concerns over the section beneath the straits rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the section’s protective coating since 2014. A boat anchor damaged the section in 2018, intensifying fears of a spill.
The Michigan department of natural resources under Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s governor, revoked the straits easement for Line 5 in 2020. Enbridge filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation.
Enbridge won a ruling from a federal judge blocking the move, but Whitmer, a Democrat, has appealed to the sixth US circuit court of appeals. In March, the supreme court rejected Whitmer’s appeal claiming that she couldn’t be sued in federal court.
It was unclear how the federal ruling blocking Whitmer’s revocation attempt would affect Nessel’s case in state court. The company said in a statement that the judge in the Whitmer case had already decided federal regulators, not the state, are responsible for Line 5 safety and they had found no issues that would warrant shutting it down.
Enbridge also is seeking permits to encase the section of pipeline beneath the straits in a protective tunnel. The Michigan public service commission granted the relevant permits in 2023, but a coalition of environmental groups and Michigan tribes has filed a lawsuit seeking to void state permits for the tunnel. The state supreme court is weighing that case.
Enbridge also needs approval from the US army corps of engineers and the Michigan department of environment, Great Lakes and energy.
The pipeline is at the center of a separate legal dispute in Wisconsin as well. A federal judge in Madison last summer gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5 that runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior’s reservation. The company has appealed against the shutdown order to the seventh US circuit court of appeals, but it started work in February to reroute the line around the reservation.
The Bad River Band and environmental groups have filed a state lawsuit seeking to halt the work, arguing regulators have underestimated the damage the reroute construction will cause. That case also is pending.
Porter Martone becomes first teenager to score game-winning goals in his first two NHL playoff games.
Porter Martone becomes first teenager to score game-winning goals in his first two NHL playoff games.
Three Michigan State recruits will represent Team USA at the world U18 hockey championships in Bratislava and Trencin, Slovakia.
The U.S. opens against Czechia on Wednesday (10 a.m., The Hockey Network).
The future Spartans are: defenseman Nick Bogas (Royal Oak), defenseman Tyler Martyniuk (Washington Township) and forward Brooks Rogowski (Brighton).
Other local commits include: defenseman Abe Barnett (University of Michigan) and goalie Luke Carrithers (Western Michigan).
Team USA’s head coach is Nick Fohr (Dexter) with Kevin Porter (Northville) and Dan Darrow (Livonia) among the assistant coaches.
The tournament features 10 countries with the final scheduled for May 2.
Bruins tie series with Sabres
The visiting Boston Bruins scored three second-period goals and held off a late Buffalo Sabres rally to post a 4-2 win on Tuesday and even their Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series at one victory apiece.
Viktor Arvidsson scored in the last two periods, giving the Bruins 1-0 and 4-0 leads. Morgan Geekie and Pavel Zacha also lit the lamp for Boston, which heads home for Game 3 of the best-of-seven series on Thursday.
Jonathan Aspirot, Casey Mittelstadt and David Pastrnak each dished out two assists for the Bruins, and Jeremy Swayman made 34 saves.
Bowen Byram and Peyton Krebs scored as Buffalo climbed within 4-2 in the closing minutes.
Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen allowed four goals on 19 shots before Alex Lyon entered in relief following Arvidsson’s second marker, which came just 16 seconds into the third period.
Buffalo had a 36-26 shot advantage, including 20-8 in the third period, but its power play went 0-for-5. Boston finished 1-for-6 on the man advantage.
The physical contest featured 47 penalty minutes for each team.
Following a scoreless opening period, the Bruins took over in the second, scoring on three of their 11 shots against Luukkonen.
Arvidsson broke the deadlock 4:54 into the middle frame, taking Aspirot’s lob pass in ahead of the defense and beating Luukkonen five-hole with a backhander from the left circle.
A gaffe by Luukkonen helped Boston double its lead with 3:31 left in the period, as Geekie’s high backhanded dump from the far side of center ice eluded him over the glove.
The Bruins’ power play got in on the action 1:41 later. After Geekie’s one- handed keep-in at the blue line extended the play, Zacha tipped in Pastrnak’s shot from the top of the right circle while stationed in the bumper position.
Arvidsson made it 4-0 early in the third, prompting Sabres coach Lindy Ruff to change goaltenders. Aspirot banked a long feed off the boards to set up the play, leading Arvidsson down the left wing to score on a 2-on-1 rush with Zacha.
The Sabres struck twice in a 1:14 span to make things interesting. Byram accepted Beck Malenstyn’s back pass for a wrister from the top of the right circle to break Swayman’s shutout bid with 6:06 left.
Krebs soon made it 4-2, batting down and scoring the rebound of a Rasmus Dahlin point shot that caromed off the post and back into the crease.
Detroit Red Wings received six A’s in The Detroit News’ final grades for the 2025-2026 season.
Grades and key takeaways for Finnie, Gibson, Seider, Larkin, Raymond and DeBrincat after the Wings’ late collapse.
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