RIPLEY — At least gravity was still working correctly at Mont Ripley for the Upper Peninsula Finals high school downhill ski meet.

Tough, soft snow conditions made for slower and more difficult runs than normal for the final non-MHSAA tournament event of the season just outside of Houghton and Hancock, according to a email from Marquette Senior High School head coach Christy Provost detailing the meet.

Nevertheless, the Sentinels continued their domination of U.P. meets, scoring a near-perfect 21 points in the girls meet — 20 would be considered a perfect, double top-four sweep — and a quite solid 28 in the boys.

Norway was girls runner-up with 61, while Ironwood had 100 and the host Gremlins 125. Among the boys, Ironwood was second with 61, Houghton had 100 and Norway 107.

All-U.P. athletes were also named after the meet, and to nobody’s surprise, Marquette skiers claimed a vast majority of them.

For the girls, Marquette swept the First Team with Sydney Kuhl, Estelle Dehlin, Sophie Coxon and Madalyn Croney, then claimed two more spots on the Second Team with Jillian Starr and Lyla Isaacson. Norway’s Sophia Fornetti and Abby Hoy also made the Second Team, with Honorable Mention going to Houghton’s Laura Lucak.

Marquette also had a half-dozen boys make All-U.P. Ben Kuhl, Conner Henry and Brady Audette claimed First Team spots, while teammates Danny Starr, Lake Skytta and Connor Dunn got on the Second Team.

Ironwood gained the other two positions, Logan Holm on First Team and Adam Everson on Second Team.

Here are details from the U.P. Finals meet:

Girls

Dehlin and Sydney Kuhl had a pitched battle for the giant slalom victory, Kuhl coming out on top by 0.11 of a second over the two runs.

Kuhl had the second-fastest opening run of 34.34 seconds before adding the fastest of 33.50 to total 1 minute, 7.84 seconds.

Dehlin was almost identical, beating her teammate by five-hundredths of a second on the first run, 34.29, then coming up just 0.16 of a second behind in the second, 33.66, for a 1:07.95 total.

They not only led an MSHS top-five sweep in the event, but came in nearly a second and a half faster than the rest of the field.

Croney was third with runs of 34.72 and 34.59 for 1:09.31, Coxon fourth with 35.42 and 35.05 for 1:10.47, and Isaacson fifth with runs of 35.52 and 35.63 for 1:11.15.

Marquette’s JV racers slotted just outside the top 10, Armina Weinrick 11th overall in 1:15.77, Elin Betz 12th in 1:16.36 and Anna Bernard 13th in 1:16.59.

Varsity racer Jillian Starr was 16th in 1:21.81.

In slalom, Dehlin won it in what could nearly be called a walk-off. With Kuhl only able to get one run finished, though it was the fourth fastest in 45.45, she didn’t post a score.

Dehlin was able to win, at least for this razor-thin margin of a sport, by an incredible 5 1/2 seconds in 1:29.94 with runs of 45.34 and 44.60. While every other racer in the top half of the standings had a slower second run, Dehlin improved by about three-quarters of a second from Run 1 to Run 2.

She led a 1-2-3 Sentinels sweep, only Norway’s Sophia Fornetti in fourth stopping Marquette from getting a perfect meet score.

Croney was a solid runner-up with runs of 47.34 and 48.25 for 1:35.59, while Coxon was third on runs of 47.57 and 49.07 for 1:36.64.

Coxon had nearly two seconds on Fornetti’s 1:38.50, then followed the Sentinels’ Jillian Starr in fifth with 50.19 and 50.93 for 1:41.12.

Teammate Bernard came in 11th with 1:50.01, Weinrick 12th with 1:50.57, and Isaacson and Betz also had hard luck only able to get a time on one run.

Boys

Henry pulled off a rather dominating sweep of slalom and GS, winning slalom by just short of a full second and GS by well over two seconds.

Marquette was most dominant in slalom, pulling off a 1-2-3 sweep. Henry had the two fastest runs, 42.99 and 43.07, for a 1:26.06 total, while Benjamin Kuhl had the only other sub-44-second runs of 43.44 and 43.52 for 1:26.96.

Dunn grabbed third rather comfortably. While he was nearly three seconds behind Kuhl, he was also a shade under four seconds faster than fourth-place Everson of Ironwood. Dunn clocked 44.63 and 45.10 for 1:29.73 as Everson had 1:33.67.

Next for Marquette was Danny Starr in seventh with runs of 52.59 and 46.55 for 1:39.14. Teammate Sam Uchytil was 11th in 2:04.87 and Ethan Dehlin 12th in 2:06.73.

The Sentinels’ Chase Dehlin, Jude Balding and Brady Audette weren’t able to get two timed runs in and didn’t score.

In GS, Henry’s huge win meant more for MSHS as Ironwood skiers slotted in second and fourth. Henry had the only runs under 32 seconds with 31.94 and 31.85 for 1:03.79, while the Red Devils’ Holm was runner-up in 1:06.00.

Audette got down the slopes twice successfully, and quickly, too, putting up runs of 33.75 and 33.67 for 1:07.42.

Dunn was fifth with 33.99 and 33.65 for 1:07.64, with Danny Starr sixth with 34.19 and 33.79 for 1:07.98, Balding seventh with 34.56 and 34.12 for 1:08.68, and Chase Dehlin eighth with 34.16 and 34.76 for 1:08.92.

Ethan Dehlin checked in at 10th with 35.33 and 35.37 for 1:10.70, while Uchytil was 16th in 1:15.69 and Benjamin Kuhl 18th in 1:16.68.

Story contents based on email received from Marquette head coach Christy Provost. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.