Westwood's Lexi Olson, left, jumps high to block a pass by West Iron County’s Lily De Sousa during their MHSAA Division 3 district tournament first-round game played at the Patriots’ gym in Ishpeming on Monday, March 3, 2025. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

STANTON — Numerous high school girls basketball players from the Mining Journal coverage area have shown they’re as good as players anywhere in the state.

That’s both on the court and in the classroom, as proven by a look at the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan website, bcam.org, showing its lengthy list of area girls players on its honor lists for the 2024-25 season.

To be eligible for these awards, a player’s head coach must be a member of BCAM, which a statewide school-by-school enrollment shows the vast majority of coaches across Michigan are members.

From the Journal area, they include both girls and boys head coaches at Marquette, Negaunee, Ishpeming, Westwood, Gwinn, Munising, L’Anse and Baraga high schools.

This group’s highest-profile awards are its Mr. Basketball and Miss Basketball honors that began in 1981 for both. About 15 years ago, the group also began compiling a list for Retro Mr. Basketball awards that harkened back to 1920. The task was finished in 2020, giving the group a hundred years of the top boys basketball players in the state.

In the future, the group could consider a Retro Miss Basketball, too, which might not be as much of a monumental undertaking since girls basketball didn’t have an MHSAA sponsored tournament until 1973.

For its springtime awards in 2024-25, there are seven categories, two based specifically on performance, one for coaches, and the other four for academics or team contributions.

Today we’ll look at the two performance categories.

Ten area girls made lists for BCAM’s Best, and as the name suggests, are simply the best players in the state classified by division.

Divisions 1 through 4 each had 20 players named BCAM’s Best and about 50 more who earned Honorable Mention.

In Division 1, Marquette seniors Brianna Anderson and Aubree Blackburn each made this tough-to-crack, biggest-schools division Honorable Mention.

In Division 2, Negaunee senior Aubrey Johnson also won Honorable Mention, while elsewhere from the Upper Peninsula, Gladstone junior Lillie Johnson made the BCAM Best list while senior Eva Gerard of Houghton and sophomore Piper Bell of Sault Ste. Marie joined Johnson on the HM list.

Division 3 had the only area players on the top-20 BCAM Best — senior Lexi Olson of Westwood and junior Jenessa Eagle of Ishpeming.

Each had a teammate making Honorable Mention, senior Isabelle Marta of Westwood and senior Peyton Kakkuri of Ishpeming.

The only other U.P. player in Division 3 was BCAM Best member and Calumet senior Jackie Kiilunen.

Just like with its lineup of schools, there were more U.P. players making these lists from Division 4 than in the other three divisions combined.

From the area, Honorable Mentions went to senior Bailey Corcoran of Munising, junior Kara Roberts of Baraga and freshman Addie Bowerman of Munising.

BCAM Best from the U.P. included a half-dozen players — seniors Addison Cullen and Jillian Fraser of St. Ignace, senior Emily Jokela of Lake Linden-Hubbell, junior Irelynd McGeshick of Ewen-Trout Creek, junior Lauren Adams of Norway and freshman Bree Besonen of E-TC.

Seven more joined the HM listing — seniors Mariska Laurila and Grace Maule of Carney-Nadeau, junior Emma Besonen of E-TC, junior Emma Choronzy of Wakefield-Marenisco, junior Cleo Milkey of Lake Linden-Hubbell, junior Aubrey Olson of Rapid River and junior Elsie Williams of Forest Park.

That’s 27 from the U.P. out of approximately 280 in all who were honored with this award statewide.

That’s just a hair short of 10% of all honorees, compared to about 3.5% of the state population that lives above the Mackinac Bridge.

The other performance-based player honor was the Top Shooter Awards, looking at the best sharpshooting 3-point and free throw shooters.

In an interesting twist, while only 10 individuals and 10 teams statewide were recognized in each category, the group also lists the top 20 all-time, which is where players and teams from our area really shined.

In this year’s awards, no area athletes or teams cracked the top 10. The U.P. had representation with Division 4 state finalist E-TC. Not only were the Panthers third in team 3-point percentage at 36.3% and fourth in free throw percentage at 67.9%, but E-TC junior Emma Besonen — a BCAM Best Honorable Mention pick — was 10th in 3-point makes at 41.2%.

Interestingly, the same school led the entire state in all four of these categories, Division 1 Farmington Hills Mercy.

An all-girls, Catholic-based school, the Marlins led the state in team 3-pointers at 39.4% and team free throws at 74.0%, and Mercy senior Aizlyn Albanese was No. 1 in both 3-pointers at 50.0% and free throws at 88.1%.

The Mercy team made it to the D-1 regional semifinals before bowing out, and Albanese is listed online as preparing to play at New York University.

Then a check of the all-time leaders in these four categories revealed a wealth of local talent in the free throw department, all coming out of Westwood, Negaunee and Ishpeming.

The 2017-18 Hematites are the No. 1 all-time free-throw shooting team at 78.35%, making 228 of 291 that season.

That’s just over one full percent ahead of No. 2, the 2020-21 E-TC unit, at 77.27%.

There’s more, though — in fact, four more Marquette County teams are in the second 10 of the 20 listed.

The 1997 Ishpeming girls — they only need one year as high school girls basketball back then was played in the fall — is 12th on the list at 73.75% (236 of 320), 2003 Westwood squad is next in 13th with 73.41% (301 of 410), 2018-19 Westwood unit is 16th at 72.88% (215 of 295) and Negaunee’s 2017-18 team rounds out the list in 20th at 72.54% (214 of 295).

Compared to this year, only the No. 1 Farmington Hills Mercy team can crack the top 20.

On the individual free throw shooting list, last year’s Miss U.P. Basketball, Ella Mason of Negaunee, is No. 2 all-time with her 2023-24 senior season as she made 93.07% (94 of 101), less than two-tenths of a percent behind all-time leader Abbey Kimball of Grand Rapids West Catholic, who made 93.24% on 69-of-74 shooting in 2019-20.

Also in the top 20 is Madelyn Koski of Westwood, who in 2018-19 made 89.39% (59 of 66) to rank 13th.

It’s a close race up and down that top 20, with less than 4.5% between Nos. 1 and 20.

One other U.P. player shows up on the free throw list, Taylor Kaurala of Houghton in the 2009-10 season, seventh at 90.74% (49 of 54).

This is the first of four stories about the awards distributed by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. Story contents based on an examination of the BCAM website, bcam.org/bcam-awards-published/. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.