Marquette’s Maria Millado, Westwood’s Natalie Prophet, Ishpeming’s Jenna Maki and L’Anse’s Maija Rice each earned well deserved spots on the All-U.P. Second Team.

Millado and Prophet were both unanimous selections.

This was Millado’s second straight season on the Second Team and she had a solid case. The junior averaged 12.1 points per game, 6 rebounds, 3.3 steals, 1.5 assists and 1 block. She also shot 50 percent from the field and 69 percent from the free-throw line.

“If anyone has seen her play, she’s got crazy athleticism, and is really smart, and has good anticipation and all those things kind of took a step up from her sophomore year to her junior year,” Redettes head coach Ben Smith said. “The role that she filled for us was a little bit different where as a sophomore she had four seniors kind of in the mix with her and she was kind of a second or third option on the offense, where this year she was kind of one or two rungs up on the pecking order.

Westwood’s Natalie Prophet looks to make a move around Negaunee’s Emilia Palomaki in the fourth quarter of their high school girls game played at Lakeview Memorial Gymnasium in Negaunee on March 19. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

“So we asked her to do a lot more and with the craziness that this year had with lack of practice and lack of prep time and everything else, it’s a big ask for anybody and I think for our team with a lack of experience coming in, it was tough to kind of adjust on the fly, but she definitely did a great job of leading us with her effort, energy, her spirit and we used her defensive acumen to help us get into offense.

“We struggled to score a good portion of the year, but a lot of the stuff she did defensively helped us out with that.”

It was also Prophet’s second consecutive year on the Second Team. The junior averaged 14.6 points per game, 5.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 2.6 steals and had a field goal percentage of 41 percent. Prophet was also named to the West PAC Dream Team and the Mid-Peninsula Conference First Team.

Patriots head coach Kurt Corcoran described Prophet as a “Swiss army knife” and said she really embraced moving from an extra option to the primary option with the Westwood offense.

“Natalie wasn’t even secondary,” Corcoran said with a laugh. “She was tertiary. She was a third, fourth, maybe a fifth option sometimes when you had Madi (Koski) and Tessa (Leece) and Karlie Patron.

Ishpeming’s Jenna Maki, left, tips a pass attempt by Negaunee’s Daylyn Drew in the fourth quarter of their game played at Lakeview Memorial Gymnasium in Negaunee on Feb. 12. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

“So she had a whole new role this year. We kind of dabbled with the point guard position for a while, she literally played the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (positions) for us at one point or another during the season. Sometimes, 1 through 5 during a single game.

“So it was a completely new role for her and you figure too those last couple years, she’s had the third-, fourth- or fifth-best defender on her, and now she was like our secret weapon, and she went to a role where everybody knew that they had to key on her and she still averaged almost 15 (points) a game.

“There’s a calming aspect when it comes to Natalie because you know she’s always capable of hitting a 3, driving to the basket, hitting one of her teammates for a beautiful assist. She literally does it all and just having somebody like that on your team isn’t always even fair to the competition because when Natalie’s on a roll, there’s nothing that’s going to stop her.”

Finally, Maki used a good freshman campaign to slide into a slot. She averaged 11.4 points per game, 6.1 rebounds, 2.7 steals and 2.3 assists. She also scored in double digits in every game but one, scoring a season-high 23 points along with seven steals against Iron Mountain. In addition, Maki made both the M-PC and West PAC first teams.

“She’s a basketball junkie,” Hematites head coach Ryan Reichel said. “As a point guard, you’ve got to throw a lot of things at players and she adapted really well on the learning curve and understood and took the criticism very well and attempted to get better every day.”

Maki is known for her ability to slash her way to the basket on offense, but Reichel said her length also allows her to pick off passes and create turnovers on defense. He also said that Maki improved over the course of the year and started to limit mistakes.

“We started the season off 0-4 against four of the top teams in the U.P.,” he said. “So I saw some of those mistakes in one of those games against Calumet, but the thing with her was she kept trying to get better. She reduced her turnovers and that’s when we started winning a lot more games is when she started to understand the varsity speed and the things that she can get away with. Going from eighth grade to varsity basketball is very hard and I was really impressed with what she did.

“I’m excited for the next three years. We had a really good freshmen group coming through and I’m excited to see what she can do. I feel like she has a chance to have a household name with a lot of these other good freshmen, but also what has gone through with (Escanaba’s) Nicole Kamin, (Westwood alums) Tessa Leece and Madi Koski, (Negaunee alum) Clara Johnson, these girls that have played on the varsity for four years.”

L’Anse’s Maija Rice’s also made the team, though no stats were available for her.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.