MUNISING — Alger County schools Munising and Superior Central each had runner-up finishes at their respective MHSAA Upper Peninsula high school track and field regionals held last week.

On Wednesday, the Cougars’ boys finished in second place to host Rapid River in a Division 3 regional, then on Friday, both Munising’s boys and girls were runners-up to host Pickford in a Division 2 regional.

They were the lone area representatives at their regionals.

The top four finishers in both individual and relay events at Division 1 and 2 regionals continue on to the U.P. Finals, scheduled for Saturday, May 31, in Kingsford.

In Division 3, the only difference is that only two relays qualify out of each regional, as there are twice as many regionals with a total of about three times as many teams in the smallest-schools division.

Here are more details about each regional:

SC boys rise to 2nd place

Will Spranger won a pair of close dashes over two different Rapid River runners to boost the SC boys’ point total.

The Cougars finished with 30 points as the host Rockets had 70. Mid Peninsula was a close third with 28, Engadine had 24, Escanaba Holy Name 18, Hannahville 14 and Big Bay de Noc 1.

In the girls meet, Engadine won with 47 as RR had 45. Big Bay was third with 33, Mid Pen had 19, SC was fifth with 18 and Holy Name had 17.

Spranger won his 200-meter dash by three-hundredths of a second in 24.90 seconds, while he also won the 400 by 0.37 of a second in 53.23.

Also in the boys meet, teammate Connor Blomgren advanced to the finals with a top-four finish in the shot put and discus, Cody Moore in the long jump, and both Gavin Vining and Chris Kulik in the 100.

The Cougars loaded up in the relays, winning the 800 and finishing second by 0.35 of a second in the 400 relay.

Vining and Carter Korpi ran with each of those units, while Spranger and Cody Moore were with the 800 relay that clocked 1:40.28 and Cole Ozoga and Jack Kasten ran with the 400 relay.

A pair of SC girls qualified in two events — Marlene Johnson in the 200 and 400 and Emma Stoliecki in the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles.

Teammate Meredith Kempker also made it in the 100, Rowan Allender in the 200 and Aiyana Taskey in the shot put.

Like their boys counterparts, the Cougars girls also qualified for Kingsford in the 400 and 800 relays, though in this case, they won the 400 relay in 58.09 and were second in the 800. The same four girls ran with each — Johnson, Kemper, Kendra Pederson and Kiera McDonnald.

Munising double runners-up

Munising won four events to finish as a solid runner-up to Pickford in the girls meet, scoring 40 points to 60 for the host Panthers. Bark River-Harris was third with 35, followed by Norway with 21, Iron Mountain 16 and Rudyard 15.

The Mustangs’ boys had just one win, but qualified just about as many athletes as their girls did to finish in second place with 31 points. Pickford won with 69, while IM was third with 24, followed by BR-H with 22, Norway 21 and Rudyard 20.

Dayne Behning was Munising’s biggest star, winning two events in the girls meet, qualifying for the finals in a third and losing out on a fourth spot only because of a tiebreaker.

She took the 100 hurdles in 18.03 seconds; the long jump with a leap of 13 feet, 10.5 inches; also qualified in the 300 hurdles; and tied for fourth but lost a tiebreaker and finished fifth in the high jump.

Teammate Addie Bowerman won the girls’ 300 hurdles in 51.74 while also qualifying in the 100 hurdles.

Also for the Mustangs’ girls, Elizabeth Wing qualified in the shot put and discus, Olivia Cotey in the 800 and Kate Mattson in the pole vault.

Munising also qualified in three relays for the finals, winning the 1,600, taking second in the 800 and third in the 3,200 relay. The winning 1,600 clocked 4:45.61 and included Mattson, Bowerman, Cotey and Ava Eubanks.

In the boys meet, the Mustangs’ lone win came when Dan Goss took the 3,200 in 10:57.73. He also qualified in the 400, 800 and 1,600, while teammate Trevor Nolan was a qualifier in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200.

Also for Munising, Jack Dusseault qualified in the high jump, while Dylan Adkinson made it in the 200 and lost the fourth-place qualifying spot in the 100 by one-hundredth of a second.

In relays, Munising finished second in the 1,600 and 3,200 as Nolan ran with one of them and Cayden Wieczorek and Nolan Connaughton ran with both.

Story contents based on results available from the MHSAA website, www.mhsaa.com. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.