By Journal Sports Staff

ISHPEMING — A look at the way that honors were divvied up shows a real balance of power among Marquette County boys basketball teams in the West PAC.

Negaunee, Westwood and Ishpeming each finished with 8-4 league records in the conference’s Iron Division and had fairly similar overall records, too — the Miners were 15-8, Patriots 14-10 and Hematites 13-10.

And each of those schools landed one player each on the West PAC Dream Team, Iron Division First Team, All-Defensive Team and Iron Division Honorable Mention.

Then Gwinn, which brought up the rear in the Iron Division with 3-9 league and 6-17 overall records, nearly matched their northern brethren, getting one player apiece on the Iron Division First Team, All-Defensive Team and the Iron Division Honorable Mention.

The honors were decided upon by conference coaches at a meeting held in late February.

All of these schools had to take a step back and salute Iron Mountain, which not rolled to a perfect 12-0 West PAC mark but swept the three major league awards in unanimous votes.

Mountaineers junior forward Oskar Kangas was selected as Player of the Year, senior guard Matthew Colavecchi as Defensive Player of the Year and Harvey “Bucky” Johnson as Coach of the Year.

Area players chosen for the league’s Dream Team were Negaunee senior guard Gavin Saunders, Ishpeming junior guard Caden Luoma and Westwood sophomore guard Ethan Marta.

Marta, in fact, was the only freshman or sophomore that made any of these all-league lists.

On the Iron Division First Team were Gwinn senior guard Conner Dupras, Ishpeming senior guard Hunter Smith, Westwood senior forward Andrew Niemi and Negaunee junior forward Baron Heslip.

Then on the Iron Division Honorable Mention list were Westwood senior forward Eddie Anderson, Ishpeming senior guard Parker Gauthier, Negaunee junior guard Jordan Guenette and Gwinn junior center Waylon Sales.

Earning a nod on the All-Defensive Team were four Marquette County seniors, all of whom earned other league honors.

They are the Miners’ Saunders, the Hematites’ Smith, the Modeltowners’ Dupras and the Patriots’ Anderson.

The four Marquette County schools plus IM comprise the West PAC Iron Division, while Houghton, Calumet, Hancock and West Iron County make up the Copper Division.

Only Houghton at 7-4 even came close to posting the same league record as Negaunee, Ishpeming or Westwood, while Gwinn matched Copper Division runner-up Calumet (3-8) in wins and exceeded those of WIC (2-9) and Hancock (1-10).

Here are the balance of West PAC awards, which includes separate First Team and Honorable Mention for the Copper Division. Players are listed with year, position and school:

Dream Team — Gerald Sampoll-Torres, jr. guard, Iron Mountain

Iron Division First Team — Reece Kangas, sr. guard, IM

Iron Division Honorable Mention — Ian Marttila, jr. guard, IM

All-Defensive Team — Luke Hill, jr. guard-forward, Houghton

Copper Division First Team — Elijah Oberlin, jr. center, West Iron County; Alex Pietila, sr. forward, Hancock; Luke Hill, jr. guard-forward, Houghton; Lane Laux, jr. forward, Houghton; Blake Tarvis, sr. guard, Calumet

Copper Division Honorable Mention — Abel Lundin, jr. forward, WIC; Bryce Pugh, sr. center, Houghton; Alan Bjorn, sr. center, Calumet; Ned Larson, jr. guard, Hancock

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