Negaunee’s Eli Luokkala powers to the hoop on March 25 in an MHSAA Division 2 district tournament game played at Lakeview Memorial Gymnasium in Negaunee. (Journal photo by Ryan Stieg)

EAST LANSING — Even though the letter classes have lost almost all of their meaning when it comes to Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments, they do show an indication of where a school’s enrollment is headed compared to other schools around the state.

Munising is one of just two Upper Peninsula schools changing classes for the coming school year, the Mustangs dropping from Class C to Class D, according to an email this week from the state athletic group.

Ironwood is the other U.P. school changing, and it is also dropping from C to D.

The low-end threshold for Class C is 189 students.

The MHSAA splits schools into as equal as possible number of schools for each class and division. For the 2021-22 school year, there will be 186 schools in both Class A and Class B and 187 each for Class C and Class D.

Enrollment numbers are now set, unless a school shows its enrollment number should be higher.

Also for next school year, a sport-by-sport listing on the MHSAA website, www.mhsaa.com, shows that the Negaunee girls will join the Miners boys in playing in Division 2, with all other area schools maintaining their divisions in boys and girls basketball.

In this season just ending, the Negaunee girls played in Division 3 while its boys were in Division 2.

In football’s 11-player divisions, Marquette is listed in Division 3, Negaunee in Division 6, Westwood and L’Anse in Division 7, and Ishpeming, Gwinn and Manistique in Division 8.

For eight-player divisions, Munising and Newberry are in Division 1 and Superior Central is in Division 2.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.