Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
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By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD — Ironwood has a small roster and a new quarterback. But they’re also a motivated team ready to take on a challenging schedule. The Red Devils have just 18 players on the roster and they are working on transitioning Nick Miskovich from receiver to quarterback. Coach Kevin Lane is excited about Miskovich’s potential at the quarterback spot as the Red Devils get ready to start the season with a Thursday home game against Munising at 5 p.m. He also thinks the team can get past any limitations from...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY — There’s no doubt Hurley’s going to look a little different this fall in their first season as an 8-player team. They switched to an option offense. They’re adjusting to a narrower field. And scoring’s probably going to go up a little bit. But 8-player football is still football. The Northstars still expect to run the ball the vast majority of the team. Defense still counts. And Hurley still expects to have a good shot to win every game they play in. “This was done out of necessity,...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] MERCER, Wis. --- In a lot of schools, the start of football or basketball ranks as one of the most anticipated days on the sports calendar. In Mercer, it's the beginning of volleyball season. The Tigers began their quest for a ninth straight WIAA regional championship Monday with an evening practice. They played some over the summer, but that ended 2.5 weeks ago and there was already a bit of rust to get rid of, coach Robyn Schoeneman said. The first...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD --- Rukus Betlewski has been involved in a lot of sports. This year, he coached middle school baseball and then took to the diamond himself for the Ironwood Athletics, a summer American Legion team. His sharpshooting ability from 3 helped the Ironwood basketball team to a district title in 2023. But neither of those are his favorite, nor are they his most accomplished. "I love being here," he said recently at the Karate Institute in Ironwood....
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY - The three H's are what make the Paavo Nurmi Marathon so difficult. Heat. Humidity. Hills. But sometimes runners catch a break from two of them. On a fall-like day when spectators donned hoodies, the 54th Paavo proved fast with none of the heat and humidity, even as midday approached. "While it may not have been the best weather for spectators, it was fantastic for runners," race director Derek Lindstrom said. "The runners ran so well." Six...
By MEGAN HUGHES [email protected] IRONWOOD - The Ironwood Area Sports Hall of Fame inducted new members during their annual banquet held on Saturday at the Lindquist Center. These members included Ron Tretheway, Gordon "Big Slim" Kennedy, Jan Swetkovich, Jim Kivisto, Jacob DiGiorgio, the 1990-91 Ironwood girls volleyball team and the 1997 girls cross country team. The evening started with a welcome from IASHOF board member Tim Kolesar, who acted as the MC for the event. Ron Tretheway Ron...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY - One of Hurley's best football teams, two of the school's top basketball players, one of their best linemen and a pioneer in women's sports were welcomed into the Hurley Athletic Hall of Fame Saturday. It was the Hurley Quarterback Club's 26th annual induction ceremony. 2013 State Semifinal Football Team The 2013 team was one of three Hurley teams to advance to the state semifinal. The team finished 11-2 after winning three straight playoff home ga...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY — Support for Hurley football remains strong as it moves to the 8-player format, by at least one pretty solid measure. Golfers came out Friday like they always do for the program’s golf tournament, held each year at Eagle Bluff Golf Club to raise money for the Northstar football program. “This has been a signature event for our program,” Hurley coach Scott Erickson said, “and I was a little worried going to 8-man, but everybody has been super awesome about still supporting the program....
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD --- It’s not quite a Stanley Cup, but it’s the golf tournament championship Jack Wawro wanted. He won the 43rd annual Milakovich Memorial Sunday as he and partner Shawn Chambers, a two-time Stanley Cup champion, carded a 67. Wawro graduated from Luther L. Wright High School in 1996. He’s now the Director of Golf at Cragun’s Legacy Courses in Brainerd, Minnesota. “I’m from Ironwood, so to come back here and win is pretty fun,” Wawro said. “I’m always wanted to win it. I’ve always wanted to pl...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD --- Adam Mackey leads Ironwood’s all-time leading career scoring list. Jacob Ciesielczyk scored the most points in a single season for the Red Devils. Griffen Revoyr has the school’s individual game scoring mark. Those are the kinds of questions Pete Lewinski didn’t know the answer to while he was coaching at Ironwood. Nobody he asked to try to find out knew either. “I got tired of people asking me and I felt the Ironwood school should have a record of who the all-time leading scorers are,” L...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD — Ironwood, Hurley and Gogebic all had strong seasons and they played in some epic battles against each other on the diamond this season. For instance, the Red Devils beat both of their rivals, but also lost to both in walkoff fashion. Now players from all three teams, plus one from Ontonagon and a couple of recent graduates, have joined forces, and their American Legion team, the Ironwood Athletics, is 9-3 entering this week’s zone tournament in Gladstone. “You never know how it’s going to go,...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY — Old and new mixed together as Hurley kicked off its summer football workouts Monday evening. The Northstars got together for the first of four weekly sessions to get ready for their first season as an 8-player team. With it comes an old Hurley offense, the option that coach Scott Erickson employed in his early years with the program. There’s a lot to learn before the first official practice on Aug. 13 and the first game on Aug. 29, at home against old foe Lake Linden-Hubbell. “We’re excited...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] GCC men’s basketball coach Dennis Mackey didn’t know why he was asked for his signature. Had he known it would appear on the Lindquist Center's newly named Coach Mackey Court, he may have taken more time to perfect it. “My scribbling is a little bit like that naturally when I sign something fast,” he said. While he pointed out the e in his last name could look a little bit more like an e, the capital C and M to start Coach and Mackey look especially sharp. And this way, it’s authentic and still emine...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] EWEN --- As Jake Witt gets closer to achieving his goals with the Indianapolis Colts, he’s still a Yooper. Last week, the Ewen-Trout Creek graduate helped out at the U.P. Football All-Star Game in Marquette. The day after the game, he fished. The day after that, the same thing. Of course there’s still training to keep up with, the playbook and position skillwork to perfect. But he has another month before the Colts’ grueling training camp starts. Why rush a U.P. summer? “That’s what I’ve been trying to d...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD --- The Ironwood boys basketball team will be staying home in the district tournament, while the girls basketball and volleyball teams ended up with as tough a draw as anybody in the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan High School Athletic Association announced the district pairings and sites this month. The Red Devils move up to Division 3 for all three sports in the 2024-25 school year thanks to a bump in enrollment. The boys basketball team is the host of the D-3 District 65 tournament. It last host...
By CORTNEY OFSTAD Special to The Globe IRONWOOD - Scoring was not in short supply as more than 400 points were scored between two games during the annual Kiwanis Classic All Star Border Bash on Thursday night at the Lindquist Center at Gogebic Community College. The spectators in attendance got an offensive show during game 1, as the Northern Michigan girls defeated the Northern Wisconsin girls 118-98. According to Russ Maki, event organizer and Kiwanis member, it was a new record for the highes...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] KINGSFORD — The Bessemer boys relay team that’s been winning races all year went into Kingsford pretty much convinced they would win the 4x100 relay and likely break the U.P. record in the process. And they were right. What surprised them was that they went home with two U.P. records. They improved their time by two seconds and set the new standard in the 4x200 relay as well. It was a great day for them and other area athletes at the U.P. track-and-field finals despite a period of wet weather. Tommy Trudg...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] ESCANABA --- The Ontonagon girls have long stood out at the U.P. Finals. When the MHSAA first separated the U.P. Finals into two separate classes, Ontonagon won the first 10 U.P. Class C-D championships, from 1978 to 1987. When Class D got its own U.P. meet, the Gladiator girls won the first four, part of a five-year run of titles from 1994 to 1998. When classifications changed again in 2001, and the name of the smallest group of schools changed from Class D to Division 3, Ontonagon didn’t stop w...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] CAMERON, Wis. --- Ona Ruiz played basketball all her life in Spain. She played it when she came to Mercer as an exchange student. She’s going to state in track-and-field. Ruiz started triple jumping about six weeks before the WIAA Division 3 postseason started. She won the regional to advance to sectionals where she then needed a top-four finish to advance to state. A couple of sleepless nights later, Ruiz crushed her personal best, left the school record in shambles and finished in third place to p...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] Ironwood and Gogebic both won opening-round MHSAA Division 4 District 97 games at home Tuesday. The Miners may have put themselves in better position to challenge for a district title on Friday, though. Ironwood ace Brendan McCullough pitched a gem, striking out 15 Lake Linden-Hubbell batters in a 6-1 victory at Lorenson Field. He only allowed one hit and two walks. But it was still a 2-1 game when he neared 74 pitches, the most he could throw and still pitch Friday as the district tournament c...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY --- Hurley pulled away from what was a back-and-forth battle for a 17-7 five-inning win over Clayton-Turtle Lake in last week’s WIAA Division 4 regional semifinal. It put them in the regional final, where they ran into the No. 1-ranked team in the state. Grantsburg beat the Northstars 17-1 in three innings. Even though they ran into a Pirates’ team with state-level ambitions, Hurley coach Randy King was happy they were able to win their home playoff game. “I remember the feeling last year, seein...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] LAKE LINDEN --- The Bessemer Speedboys 4x100 relay team already broke its school record this season and it got an unexpected one here Monday - the best time ever at Lake Linden's Werner Field (45.79 seconds). Bessemer continued their strong performance in the event at Monday's MHSAA Division 3 regional track-and-field meet where the top four finishers in the individual events and the top two relay teams qualified for the U.P. Finals, set for June 1 in...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] HURLEY --- The Hurley basketball teams are moving up to Division 4 for next year’s WIAA postseason tournaments. The student count used by the WIAA for the 2024-25 school year rose 15 students from last year to 207 students. That’s the largest enrollment number for Hurley since they were at 218 and in Division 4 for the 2014-15 school year. Two years later, they were at 175 and a new member of Division 5. They’ve been in the state’s smallest division ever since the 2016-17 school year. That is except...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] BESSEMER --- Bessemer’s Tommy Trudgeon put his name in one record book Thursday and he’s hoping to rewrite a couple more before his senior season is finished. His time of 11.60 seconds was the fastest 100-meter dash in the history of Bessemer’s Marcy Bracket Invitational. “It was on my radar,” Trudgeon said. “I still got the school record to beat.” The old record was 11.62 seconds, set by South Shore-Washburn’s Brett Bulovsky in 2014. “It’s awesome, I am so happy for him,” Bessemer coach Valerie Aijala...
HURLEY --- The Hurley baseball team avenged an early-season loss with a 6-5 victory over Washburn Wednesday, May 8. “Great win tonight,” Hurley coach Bart Innes said. Carter Hall tripled to tie the game in the fifth inning and he scored the go-ahead run on a single by Jayden Zaleski. Hall picked up the win on the mound. He struck out 11 in a complete-game effort with two walks, five hits and five runs (four earned) allowed. “Carter pitched another dandy,” Innes said. Devin Soltis finished with two triples and Hall, Jack Caudill and Zaleski...
