Negaunee’s Aubrey Johnson, left, looks for a teammate during a high school girls basketball game played against Ishpeming at Lakeview Memorial Gymnasium in Negaunee on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — Negaunee standout girls basketball player Aubrey Johnson has been announced as a recruit in the 2025 signing class at Michigan Tech University.

In MTU’s most recent announcement, Johnson joined Maple Grove, Minnesota, product Bella Hanna as Huskies’ on head coach Sam Clayton’s team for next fall.

Johnson was a senior on the Miners’ high school team that went a perfect 21-0 in the regular season and finished at 22-1 after a 50-47 loss in the MHSAA Division 2 district championship game to Gladstone, which would go on to the state quarterfinals before bowing out.

The 5-foot-7 guard was named all-state honorable mention in Division 2 by the Michigan Sports Writers organization, the successor to the Associated Press awards.

Johnson was also named to the all-division, five-player All-Upper Peninsula Dream Team by the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.

Those honors came after she was named West PAC Player of the Year and the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, too, along with the Mid-Peninsula Conference Defensive Player of the Year.

She started 78 games in three years on the Negaunee varsity as the Miners went 70-8 in them, which included three conference, two district and a regional championship, the regionals coming in 2023-24 when NHS reached the Division 2 state semifinals.

This past season, she averaged 13.5 points, 3.4 assists, 3.4 steals and 4.3 deflections per game on a team that only scored 60 points four times despite its near-perfect record.

MTU also pointed out that Johnson is a National Honor Society member and Excellence in Education scholar. She is undecided on a major at Tech.

“We’re super excited to add Aubrey for next season,” Clayton said in an MTU Sports Information news release. “She’s an outstanding defender who brings energy and competes every possession.

“With both her mom and sister having played here, she understands what it means to be a Husky and takes pride in those intangibles, such as toughness and heart.”

She joins her former Miners’ teammate Ella Mason, who graduated from Negaunee in 2024, on this MTU team.

Story contents based on Michigan Tech University Sports Information press release reviewing the announcement. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.