Ishpeming girls basketball players celebrate after beating Morenci 37-34 in an MHSAA Division 4 girls basketball state semifinal game played on Thursday at the Breslin Center on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. (Photo courtesy Keith Dunlap)

EAST LANSING — As the Ishpeming girls basketball team prepares for this morning’s MHSAA Division 4 state championship game against Portland St. Patrick, senior guard Jenessa Eagle said there was an important conversation during Thursday’s semifinal win over Morenci.

“After the last timeout in the fourth quarter, one of our underclassmen, (sophomore) Frankie Stetson, looked at us and said, ‘We need to have trust right now,'” Eagle said. “That’s huge coming from underclassmen because they really showed out (Thursday).”

Both that game and today’s 10 a.m. encounter for all the marbles are being played at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing.

At 24-3, Ishpeming has a chance to win the state crown for the second time in three years largely because of the terrific play all season by Eagle and fellow senior Mya Hemmer, both of whom were key members of the 2024 state titlists.

But it’s just as much the growth of underclassmen and contributions from other seniors that have helped the Hematites get so far this time around.

While Eagle and Hemmer scored 35 of the team’s points in a 37-34 win over Morenci, the defensive effort from players such as Stetson, sophomore Camby Gauthier, junior Marie Salisbury, and seniors Ava Jo Hares and Brittanie Piotrowski was invaluable.

In addition, the only two points of the game scored by a player other than Eagle and Hemmer might have been the biggest basket of the game.

With Ishpeming nursing a one-point lead in the final minute, Gauthier aggressively attacked the basket and hit a layup with 30.3 seconds left to give Ishpeming a three-point lead, which it wouldn’t relinquish.

If the Hematites are to beat a traditional power in Portland St. Patrick (23-5), it will have to be a team effort once again, where everybody contributes and more voices are heard in huddles like in the semifinal.

But of course, it’ll help to have Eagle and Hemmer leading the way.

The two were starters as sophomores on Ishpeming’s state championship team two years ago, and before Thursday’s semifinal win, they made sure to educate their teammates on what it was like to play at the Breslin.

“It is a special experience,” Eagle said. “So I just keep telling them to play excited, play with energy.”

Hemmer echoed those sentiments from her fellow senior.

“My advice to them was to take it in,” Hemmer said. “We were lucky enough to play schools at our local college (Northern Michigan University) and stuff. Some of the high schools also have college-sized courts. So we kind of have the court bearings.

“Being able to play at Michigan State, that is pretty fun. I just told them, ‘Look at the fans. They are all here to watch us.'”

Ishpeming is a school that recently has straddled the border between the MHSAA’s Division 4 and Division 3 in girls basketball, having been bumped back to the larger-schools division last season before coming back to D-4 this year.

And the Hematites have played a tough schedule, with all three losses to Upper Peninsula Division 2 rivals Negaunee, Gladstone and Houghton. But IHS also won three games vs. D-2 teams, knocking off Negaunee and Gladstone in its other game against those schools, along with a win in its single encounter vs. Escanaba.

Portland St. Patrick has long been a small-school program for others to look up to, having won six championships in its history. However, this year’s trip to the state’s Final Four is the first for the Shamrocks since 2012. 

The city is relatively local to East Lansing, located about 30 miles west of the MSU campus.

Coming off a 49-26 win over Onekama in the other D-4 semifinal, St. Patrick, a school listed on the MHSAA website with an enrollment of just 78 students, has been led by junior guard Gracelyn Rockey, senior guard Lily Sandborn and freshman guard Macie Leonard. 

Ishpeming should no doubt have benefited from having a little down time after a chaotic week, thanks to a snowstorm earlier in the week that has been described as epic even by U.P. standards.

With the quarterfinal game delayed until Wednesday evening and the semifinal less than 24 hours later on Thursday, Ishpeming had a day to relax and prepare on Friday in East Lansing in hopes of obtaining its ultimate goal.

If successful, it will be Ishpeming’s second state championship in school history. 

“We were just trying to emphasize 32 minutes,” Ishpeming head coach Ryan Reichel said. “Now they have 32 minutes left in their career with one extra game.”

Keith Dunlap of Lake Orion also writes for the Michigan High School Athletic Association and several media and social media websites, and is a past sports writer for the Oakland Press. He has written stories for The Mining Journal the past three high school basketball postseasons, when the Westwood boys team reached the MHSAA Division 3 semifinals in 2025, the Ishpeming girls won the Division 4 title in 2024 and when the Munising boys won their Division 4 title in 2023.