Gwinn’s Makayla Delmont, right, tries to inbound the ball as Ishpeming’s Jenessa Eagle defends during their high school girls basketball game played at Northern Michigan University’s Vandament Arena in Marquette on Jan. 6. (Photo courtesy of Cara Kamps)

But when it came time to compare the apples to the apples around the state in Division 4, there was no heading off the Ishpeming High School girls basketball team.

Not only was outgoing head coach Ryan Reichel named the All-State D-4 Coach of the Year, but his star senior, Jenessa Eagle, earned the ultimate All-State Player of the Year honor when a panel of sportswriters statewide chose the awards that were announced on Monday.

Just for an extra bonus, Eagle’s Hematite teammate, Mya Hemmer, joined Eagle on the All-State First Team.

They also welcomed Ewen-Trout Creek’s Bree Besonen and Norway’s Lauren Adams to the First Team, while E-TC’s Emma Besonen, Bree’s older sister, made it onto the Second Team.

Ishpeming head coach Ryan Reichel, at center with writing board, talks to his Hematites during a timeout in their high school girls basketball game played against Gwinn at Northern Michigan University’s Vandament Arena in Marquette on Jan. 6. (Photo courtesy of Cara Kamps)

And Baraga’s Kara Roberts won placement on the All-State Honorable Mention list, too.

Eagle’s supporters in Ishpeming might’ve been a bit disappointed when she didn’t win Miss U.P. Basketball a couple weeks ago in a close 10-7 vote to Lillie Johnson, a player on Division 2 Gladstone.

Just like in the regular season, Ishpeming’s only losses were to Division 2 teams — Gladstone, Negaunee and Houghton. And the Hematites got revenge by also earning a win in their two-game series against Gladstone and Negaunee while compiling what became a 25-3 final record.

But once the competition was all-Division 4 — like in the MHSAA tournament — nobody could stop Ishpeming. The Hematites blew through seven games, including a 48-28 victory over Portland St. Patrick in the finals, winning all but two of their tourney contests by at least 20 points.

One of the closer games was a 40-29 victory over E-TC for the regional championship after the Panthers had reached the state finals the year before, and the other a 37-34 win over Morenci in the semifinals, less than 24 hours after Ishpeming won its postponed quarterfinal over Indian River Indian Lakes, then having to travel from Gaylord to East Lansing in that short span, a trip of about 170 miles.

Ishpeming’s Jenessa Eagle, left, sprints toget around Gwinn defender Alayna Soyring during their high school girls basketball game played at Northern Michigan University’s Vandament Arena in Marquette on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

Reichel, however, wasn’t going to allow a little bit of adversity to affect his charges.

“They get to play a sport,” Reichel said after the semifinal win. “They got to sit on a charter bus, got to get a nice hotel room. I mean we’ve got city (of Ishpeming) guys, they’ve been working around the clock trying to just get us here.”

That was a day or two after a monster winter storm — even by Ishpeming standards — did its best trying to keep the Hematites from going anywhere.

The trio of honored Hematites have all been part of two state championship teams in the past three seasons, Eagle and Hemmer starting as sophomores for the ’24 D-4 champs and Reichel who already more than a decade into his stint at Ishpeming.

Eagle, a 5-foot-10 senior point guard who’s headed to Michigan Tech to continue her sport, was voted Player of the Year in the West PAC and shared that honor with Gladstone’s Johnson in the Mid-Peninsula Conference. In All-U.P. voting by the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, she easily made it on the all-division Dream Team and was a near-unanimous selection as D-4 Player of the Year before coming in as runner-up for Miss U.P. Basketball.

It’s not hard to see why. She posted averages this season of 24.4 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.7 steals and 3.4 assists per game.

Hemmer, a 6-2 senior center who’s headed to Division I Baylor to play volleyball, made it a real 1-2 punch for the Hematites as another All-U.P. Dream Team choice. While she had solid averages of 16.6 points, two assists and 1.5 blocked shots per game, a couple of her other numbers really popped — 10.5 rebounds and 5.8 steals each outing.

She was Defensive Player of the Year in both of Ishpeming’s conferences, along with making Dream Team in the West PAC and First Team in the M-PC.

Baraga’s Roberts, a 5-4 senior, led the Vikings to a 20-4 record and a district win before bowing out to next-door rival L’Anse.

She was named to the Elite Team in the Copper Mountain Conference while averaging 18.7 points a game and finishing with 1,455 points.

Roberts was an All-U.P. Division 4 First Teamer both this year and last.

Reichel had already done something two years ago never accomplished in Ishpeming before — getting its girls basketball team past the regionals for the first time in the 50-year history of the program, then propelling it all the way to the ’24 state championship.

He didn’t really get a proper chance to repeat the feat in 2025, since a slight increase in enrollment kicked the Hematites up to Division 3, before the numbers declined enough to get them back to Division 4 this school year.

In a veritable landslide, Reichel was voted All-U.P. Division 4 Coach of the Year while his team earned Team of the Year by acclimation.

Among the other U.P. all-staters, E-TC’s Bree Besonen was the distant No. 2 vote getter for U.P. D-4 Player of the Year after earning a nod on the Dream Team with her two Ishpeming cohorts.

She averaged 17 points, 4.5 rebounds, four assists and four steals a game with a nifty 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. She also hit 45% on 3-pointers and 61% from 2, totaling 1,236 points so far in a high school career that reaches back to the eighth grade due to her school’s small enrollment.

Norway’s Adams, a 5-9 senior, averaged 24 points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals a game, shooting 55% from the field while being named Player of the Year in the Skyline Central Conference and earning a spot on the All-U.P. D-4 First Team.

E-TC’s Emma Besonen, a 5-1 senior, was also voted onto the All-U.P. D-4 First Team as she averaged 12.4 points, 4.5 assists, 2.5 rebounds and two steals per game, finishing with 1,631 points.

Here are the other All-State honorees:

First Team — Molly Walker, Kingston; Mia McGregor, Mio-Au Sable; Karis Terwilliger, Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart; Bradie Lehman, Concord; Emersyn Bachelder, Morenci; Addie Dzwik, Battle Creek St. Phillip; Abby Bills, Litchfield

Second Team — Payton Glasby, Gaylord St. Mary; Sadie Day, Midland Calvary Baptist Academy; Libby Tank, Deckerville; Gracelyn Rockey, Portland St. Patrick; Cieara Barrett, Concord; Lily Johnson, Vestaburg; Jaeli Jones, Petersburg-Summerfield; Destiny Johnson, Mount Clemens. Coach, Jay Green, Kingston

Honorable Mention — Vanessa Osborn, Kingston; Aletta Jones, Peck; Madisyn Putney, Mesick; Holly Talbert, Climax-Scotts; Chloe Robinson, Indian River Inland Lakes; Colbie Ekins, Morenci; Evelyn Joughin, Morenci; Maddy DeSmyter, Merrill; Carolina Mancera, Lawrence; Isabella Halfmann, Fowler; Maylee Tank, Deckerville; Kaylee Jeffers, Gaylord St. Mary; Addie Jarosz, Frankfort. Coach, Ashley Joughin, Morenci

Story contents based on the Michigan Sports Writers list provided by The Associated Press. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.