Then as I go through everything we’ve worked through during a 365-day period, I feel relieved that there were a bunch of stories I’d forgotten about.

Then by the point it’s actually time to come up with the list, I feel so bad about leaving somebody (well, really some story) out of the top 10.

2025 is no different. I thought about having a five-way tie for 10th, but that might’ve been all right only when there were multiple people voting for these stories.

Now it’s just me.

Negaunee High School baseball teammates Morgan Robar, left, and Aidan Steele not only matched no-hitters thrown against visiting Iron Mountain at the Irontown Field in Negaunee on May 20, but served as catcher for the other in the game they were not hurling. (Derek Cardinal photo courtesy Stephanie Robar)

While you’ll find this year’s top 10 — along with a similar set of news stories — in several special sections in today’s Mining Journal, right here I’m going to go through a list of the Not Ready for Top 10 List, sort of a takeoff of Saturday Night Live’s original cast, the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

But like John Belushi, Gilda Radner and that whole crew, they might’ve been better than the ones really in prime time.

I’ll let you decide that.

Without further ado, here’s the list:

• No. 11 — Negaunee tennis involved in narrow races for not one, but two Upper Peninsula titles.

In the boys spring season at Escanaba in late May, Marquette won its first U.P. championship in 16 years by three points over the Miners, 17-14, with Kingsford also close with 13 points.

“I’m super proud of these guys and the effort they have put in,” Marquette coach Karl Thomsen said. “The work they have put in over the last three years to get the program back where it used to be really shows up in the results this season.”

In singles, each of the contending schools had a winner in the first three flights, including titles won by Marquette’s Chase Thomsen and Negaunee’s Kolten Store, but the Sentinels started to surge ahead when No. 4 singles player Elan Chu won his title, too.

Then MSHS was even more dominant in doubles, with three duos taking titles — Lucas Belkowski and Conner Henry, along with Connor Dunn and Winston Leonard, and also Kane Bush and Bode Helman.

The Miners kept in contention by claiming runner-up finishes at four flights.

Then when the girls finals rolled around on Oct. 1, Negaunee edged Westwood by a single point for that U.P. Division 1 championship, 19-18, with no other team totaling more than six points.

This time, depth proved the difference for the Miners, who only won titles at three flights while Westwood took four.

That’s because Negaunee also had a runner-up finish in all of the other five flights as the Miners appeared in every one of the eight finals.

Championships were attained by Negaunee’s Rheana Nelson in singles and also by two doubles tandems — Clare O’Donnell and Nicole Kerkela and also Sadie Rogers and Olivia Richards.

The Patriots had champs, none being regulars on the 2024 teams, from Lyn Magnuson and Emmi Hamel in singles, and the pairings of Tessa Burke and Emmi Carlson, along with Emerson Williams and Lauren Michaud-Richards in doubles.

• No. 12 — Marquette boys return to winning a state championship in downhill skiing.

The Sentinels hadn’t won a boys state title since 2020, just before the start of the coronavirus pandemic that was their eighth straight crown.

But senior Sam Dehlin was almost ready to deliver the MHSAA Division 1 championship by himself, sweeping to slalom and giant slalom titles at Nub’s Nob near Harbor Springs on Feb. 24.

Of course, with scoring the way it is in skiing, much like cross country running, it takes a full squad to be able to contend for a team title.

“Overall, I think it was a really good (performance). I think all the people on our team skied to the best of their ability,” Dehlin said.

The best of his ability was simply the best — period.

In slalom, he won by nearly three seconds over the two runs combined time, an eternity plus some in this breakneck sport. Then in slalom, he won by “only” two-thirds of a second — 0.67 of a second to be exact — which was probably more important as Marquette was only third as a team in that discipline.

Taking second in the GS was teammate Conner Henry as MSHS dominated by taking four of the top six places in that event.

The girls team, by the way, wasn’t too shabby, either, while building toward the future with freshman Stella Dehlin — Sam’s younger sister — leading them to a close third-place finish, just four points out of second.

This Dehlin was also a close third in GS — missing that runner-up position by four-hundredths of a second — and fifth in slalom.

• No. 13 — Marquette swimmers and divers dominate in sweep of U.P. Finals by nearly a hundred points in each meet.

Winning their sixth straight boys and fourth straight girls championship, the Sentinels ruled their own home pool on Feb. 15.

The boys rolled up 338 points as Houghton was runner-up with 246, while the girls scored 347 to Kingsford’s 252.

They didn’t just do it with a few good swimmers and divers but had all of 19 of its top-seeded boys reach a top-three placing on the podium, with 16 girls in top heats and 18 making the podium.

Sophomore Olive Krueger was a star, though, with two individual and two relay championships, while girls teammate Logan McFarren won an individual event and was on the same two triumphant relays.

For the Marquette boys, Trevor Crandell and Isaiah Youngren each carted off an individual and relay title. A day earlier, their teammate Wyatt Ansell captured the diving crown by more than 30 points.

• No. 14 — Ishpeming’s Jenessa Eagle and Westwood’s Ethan Marta named First Team all-state in basketball.

The Michigan Sports Writers organization, which took the place of The Associated Press in deciding all-state honors a few years ago, named this pair of western Marquette County players to the First Team in their respective Division 3 honor squads in early April.

Eagle was a senior with the Hematites and helped them win a Division 4 state championship in 2024, taking over leadership of that team after all-stater Jenna Maki graduated that year.

Though her team “only” went 18-6 after a one-loss season the year before, those half-dozen were distributed two apiece to tourney quarterfinalists Gladstone and Calumet and to 22-1 Negaunee.

Eagle was reported to have scored well over 1,200 points in her three-year varsity career, making both of her conferences’ — the Mid-Peninsula and West PAC — top honor teams, along with the All-U.P. Dream Team.

Marta, a junior last season and leading the Patriots to a stupendous start this fall, had already stamped himself as Westwood’s all-time highest scorer in his sport at exactly 1,400 points before he even began his senior season.

He led Westwood to the MHSAA Division 3 semifinals at Michigan State University, while being named Player of the Year in the West PAC, a finalist for Mr. U.P. Basketball and a unanimous choice for the All-U.P. Dream Team.

The voting for Mr. Basketball showed how deep the talent was in Marquette County, with Marquette’s Jacob MacPhee actually earning that title.

However, being in Division 1, it was a lot tougher to break into the all-state honors for MacPhee, though he was still on the Second Team.

Also for the boys, Ishpeming senior Caden Luoma made the Second Team all-state in Division 3.

On the girls side, Negaunee senior Aubrey Johnson was honorable mention all-state in Division 2, the division that Miss U.P. Basketball Lillie Johnson of Gladstone made First Team.

And Baraga junior Kara Roberts earned honorable mention all-state in Division 4.

• No. 15 — Champion Carter Mason of Negaunee leads a Wawonowin Country Club contingent at the top of the leaderboard at the U.P. Golf Association annual tournament on Aug. 10.

Mason, 26, was a former golf star at Negaunee High School and did quite well for himself on the Northern Michigan University team. But he surpassed just about all of that by going to the Gladstone Golf Club and winning the 111th edition of the UPGA event.

That only happened, though, after the second hole of a playoff against a golfer from much nearer Gladstone, Bryson Mercier of Wild Pines Golf Club of Hermansville.

They each shot 250 over four rounds, which were really 3 1/2 rounds, as the back nine of the third round was washed out and only the part that everyone competed in, the front nine, counted.

Mason was steady with 18-hole rounds of 73, 73 and 71 to go with the nine-hole 33.

He was just one of three Wawonowin golfers to finish in the top four, though.

Two-time defending UPGA champion Mark Clements, exactly twice Mason’s age at 52, was third with 256, also quite steady with 73, 75, 36 and 72, while ex-Westwood star and current NMU golf senior Tyler Annala was a close fourth in a tie at 257, a bit more up and down with 78, 70, 35 and 74. Chad Tirschel of Pine Grove CC in Iron Mountain also had 257.

By the way, in the U.P. Ladies Golf Association event a couple weeks earlier, Zoe Woodworth of Houghton edged out current NMU golfer Abbie Pietila in the finals, which was held in a match-play format.

• No. 16 — Senior Ella Fure wins individual girls title and leads Marquette to team crown at the U.P. Finals in cross country.

Held at Pictured Rocks Golf Course in Munising on Oct. 18, these meets produced a four-time champion and one who originally thought she wouldn’t run at all this fall.

The four-time champ was Gabe Litzner of Sault Ste. Marie, who had his own battle after coming back after being hit by a car about 18 months earlier.

Then the runner who almost didn’t start the season was Fure, who suffered from mononucleosis in the summer.

But after being knocked down by the condition, she came back for the fourth fastest time in U.P. Division 1 Finals history in 18 minutes, 53.3 seconds. Her victory was by more than 30 seconds over runner-up Maria Murvich of Kingsford.

“That was my goal,” she said. “I ran in God’s name more than in my own, and that’s why I think I was successful. It was also my goal to run as hard as I can.

“This was my last high school cross country meet. I just left it all on the course.”

The Sentinels needed her finish after scoring 39 points compared to second-place Soo’s 53.

Despite Litzner’s 17-second victory, MSHS also won the boys title as Rorik Holmquist, Peter Argeropoulos and Lucas Ballard slotted into the next three positions in that order after the champion.

Marquette’s boys scored 34 points with the Soo having 43.

• No. 17 — Senior Pavel McCutcheon makes it three years in a row that Marquette football claims the top lineman award in All-U.P. voting.

Following the same award presented to brothers Talon Smith in 2023 and Dasan Smith in 2024, McCutcheon won the Mitchell Snyder Lineman of the Year award during voting by the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association at NMU announced on Nov. 15.

Both Smith brothers have gone on to play at NCAA Division I Central Michigan.

Bound for Division II powerhouse Grand Valley State, McCutcheon was such an obvious choice that no other player was nominated for this top lineman award.

All three of the recent winners played for MSHS head coach Eric Mason.

“He is a dominant run and pass blocker (and has) exceptional length and athletic ability,” Mason said in comments supporting McCutcheon’s All-U.P. nomination on offense. “He’s also a great leader and great character kid.

“He was unblockable with his length and athletic ability,” Mason said about his play on defense. “He’s a great leader on and off the field, still with a big upside.”

• No. 18 — Ishpeming senior Mya Hemmer voted U.P. Division 4 Defensive Player of the Year in high school volleyball.

Earlier being voted onto the All-U.P. Dream Team by the UPSSA, Hemmer had already been voted by coaches as the Player of the Year in both the West PAC and M-PC.

She’ll be headed to Division I Baylor University of the Big 12 and located in Waco, Texas, after making 326 kills with about a .400 attack percentage this season, adding in 78 blocks and 43 digs.

• No. 19 — A pair of Negaunee High School baseball players not only threw no-hitters in the same doubleheader, but were the catcher for each other’s achievement.

“We knew we had the no-hitters going, but no one realized until after both games were over that each of them had caught for the other,” Miners manager Jason Siik said. “That was pretty neat, I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.”

On May 20, Negaunee’s Aiden Steele threw his no-no in a 15-0, three-inning home win over Iron Mountain in the opener, then was followed by teammate Morgan Robar pulling off the same feat in the 10-0, five-inning win in the nightcap.

Robar was “blamed” for the brevity of Game 1, going 2 for 3 at the plate with two RBIs, two runs scored and three stolen bases as catcher to help invoke the 15-run rule as soon as it could be.

Steele wasn’t bad himself as a catcher, stroking a double with two RBIs and scoring a run in Game 2.

Robar also threw a no-hitter against Gladstone the previous week as the Miners, finishing at 24-6, advanced to the MHSAA Division 3 regional finals before bowing out 4-3 to eventual state champion Traverse City St. Francis.

• No. 20 — Marquette junior Boden Moore felt motivated to win the U.P. Finals in boys golf by three strokes.

After losing by a single stroke to Sentinels teammate Kaleb Chipelewski in the same event 12 months earlier, Moore carded a sizzling 2-under-par 70 on the tough Sage Run course near Bark River on May 28.

“It definitely motivated me a little bit,” Moore said of his 2024 finish.

Moore eagled the short par-4, No. 8 hole, then had birdies on a pair of par-5s, Nos. 3 and 9.

“I was just making all the six- and seven-footers and hitting good drives,” Moore said. “I was throwing darts with the irons. The irons were locked in. Just putting them close and making some putts.”

He also helped MSHS win the team title by 11 strokes over nearby Escanaba.

The Marquette girls were runners-up by 17 strokes to the same Eskymos, while in Division 2, Blair Maki’s third-place finish led Newberry to a three-stroke victory over Stephenson in the girls finals meet at Oak Crest Golf Course in Norway.

Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.