ESCANABA — The Marquette Senior High School volleyball team lost a four-set decision at Escanaba on Thursday evening.

The Eskymos prevailed in this Great Northern Conference match, 25-23, 26-24, 18-25, 25-17.

“There was no doubt that it was a tough loss for Marquette with very close scores,” Sentinels head coach Melissa Butler said in an email. “Escanaba did a great job of keeping us out of system. We had a difficult time serving and were not disciplined enough to win.

“The team as a whole knows what it takes to be able to compete to the best of our ability, and we will continue to work hard at improving our performance in the future.”

Marquette is hosting the Sentinel Invitational this morning and afternoon, then has a nonconference match at Gwinn at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday and another nonleague encounter at Upper Peninsula No. 1 Calumet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

In this week’s volleyball poll conducted by the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, the Sentinels were tied with Houghton for No. 3 in Divisions 1-3 with a 4-5 record.

The Copper Kings were a unanimous pick in D 1-3 at 9-3-1, with Kingsford second at 12-3. Escanaba was No. 5 at 4-3 with the poll conducted before Thursday’s match.

In Division 4, Forest Park (14-1) was a unanimous No. 1, with St. Ignace (11-1-3) second, Ewen-Trout Creek (9-4) and Wakefield-Marenisco (12-4-1) tied for third, and Lake Linden-Hubbell (13-8) fifth.

Among the schools that received votes but couldn’t quite break into the top five, Negaunee (10-3-1) missed the D 1-3 list by a single vote, while Newberry (12-4) missed the D-4 list by two votes.

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