Marquette's Guinn Wuorinen, left, leads in the Division 1 girls 1,600-meter run ahead of a trio of Houghton runners during the MHSAA Upper Peninsula Finals in track and field held in Kingsford on June 5. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — As it has done several times in recent years, Marquette was the single biggest winner in the state when it came to winning MHSAA championships during the 2020-21 school year.

Championships include overall state championships in some sports, including football, boys and girls basketball, volleyball, softball and baseball, but also peninsula titles — both Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula — in many others.

Marquette claimed five U.P. titles, beating out two downstate schools that had four apiece — Ann Arbor Pioneer and Grass Lake.

The MSHS championships — all in U.P. Division 1 — came in both girls and boys track and field, along with boys cross country, boys golf and boys swimming and diving.

Pioneer’s four titles were all Lower Peninsula titles in cross country, swimming and tennis, while Grass Lake had statewide titles in girls basketball and boys bowling along with L.P. crowns in track and field.

The MHSAA also noted in a Thursday press release that Grass Lake has participants in a cooperative with Jackson Area that won the girls gymnastics title.

Four U.P. schools other than Marquette also won multiple titles, including Ishpeming with two. The Hematites took the U.P. Division 2 titles in boys cross country and boys track and field.

Also from the U.P., West Iron County won three championships, while Dollar Bay and Norway joined Ishpeming by each winning two.

An MHSAA listing of all state titles, available at www.mhsaa.com/Portals/0/Documents/Media/20-21ParadeofChampions.pdf, list all MHSAA tournament winners by sports and divisions, and includes the team’s coach, overall titles won in that sport and the current consecutive titles if applicable.

For Marquette, the Kyle Detmers-coached boys cross country team has won two titles in a row and 24 overall, the Ben Smith-coached boys golf team has 14 U.P. titles, the Nathan McFarren-coached boys swimming team has won two straight championships and 28 overall, the Detmers-coached boys track and field team has 15 overall titles, and the Natalie Messano-coached girls track and field team has two straight titles and 25 overall.

For Ishpeming, the Paul Pruett-coached boys cross country champions have won three straight titles and 21 overall, while the Kaitlin Rich-coached boys track and field team has also won three straight times and has nine overall championships.

The track records for Marquette and Ishpeming indicate that their streaks don’t include 2020, when all spring sports were canceled.

Other area schools with winners on the list include the Munising girls cross country team in U.P. Division 3, which is coached by Mark Kinnunen and has won two titles overall; and the Negaunee girls tennis team in U.P. Division 1, which is coached by Kyle Saari and has won 10 overall titles.

In its press release, the MHSAA noted that 89 schools won at least one of these 132 team championships, including two schools that won for the first time in any sport in their histories — Detroit Douglass in Division 4 boys basketball and Owosso in Division 2 softball.

There were 27 schools winning multiple times, including Marquette, Ishpeming and the other three from the U.P.

Thirty-nine teams won their first MHSAA title in their respective sports, while 42 were repeat winners from 2019-20, or from 2018-19 in the case of some winter and most spring sports.

Fifteen teams ran their win streak to at least three years, including both Ishpeming champions. The longest streaks — eight seasons — belong to the Rockford girls lacrosse and Lowell wrestling teams.

Of the 28 championship tournaments held by the MHSAA, 16 are unified between the peninsulas, including several in sports not offered in the U.P., including lacrosse and soccer, the latter because of the court rulings that moved the seasons for many sports, including volleyball and girls basketball, that took effect about 15 years ago.

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