LAKE LINDEN — L’Anse and Baraga had middle-of-the-road finishes at an MHSAA Upper Peninsula Division 3 high school track and field regional held at Lake Linden-Hubbell on Thursday.

In the nine-team field, the Purple Hornets and Vikings had third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishes as the main point of the meets was to qualify athletes for the MHSAA U.P. Finals to be held in all divisions at Kingsford on Saturday, May 30.

While the top four individuals advance to Kingsford, only the top two finishers in Division 3 relays head to the finals. That’s mostly because while Divisions 1 and 2 have 11 or 12 teams each, Division 3 includes around 30 teams, necessitating twice as many regionals, therefore half as many relay qualifiers at each.

In the boys meet, the host Lakes ran away from the field with 73 points as Bessemer was runner-up with 32. L’Anse was a close third with 30, Dollar Bay had 19, Baraga 17, Watersmeet and Chassell each had 5, Ontonagon 4 and Wakefield-Marenisco 2.

For the girls, LL-H also won by a fairly comfortable margin, scoring 49 points to runner-up Dollar Bay’s 33. Ontonagon was third with 27, Baraga fourth with 25, L’Anse fifth with 20, then Chassell 19, W-M 10, Bessemer 3 and Watersmeet 1.

Here are details from each meet:

Boys meet

L’Anse piled up a majority of its points in field events, winning three of them with several other U.P. Finals qualifiers from those events, too.

Taven Lewis led the Hornets, winning both the discus with a toss of 150 feet, 9 inches — a victory of nearly 32 feet — and the shot put with 42-7.

Teammate Reese Laitila won the high jump after clearing 5-8 and winning a four-way tiebreaker at that height.

On the track, L’Anse’s Connor Kemppainen was triumphant in the 110 hurdles in 16.87 seconds and 300 hurdles in 44.07.

The Purple Hornets’ other qualifier was Jace Connor, who placed third in the 110 hurdles and fourth in the 300 hurdles.

Baraga picked up one victory, Matthew Rinkinen in the 200 in 24.97 seconds. He was also second in the 100 and on the Vikings’ runner-up 1,600 relay, joining Sawyer Hendrickson, Cole Roy and Kalel Pierre.

Teammate Jacob Smith was third in the shot put and fourth in the discus, while Roy was fourth in the 400.

Girls meet

The Vikings did their best work in field events, led by Elisa Delene pulling off a rather unusual double — she won the pole vault by clearing 9-feet even, then also won the discus with a toss of 99-5.

Baraga actually qualified three discus throwers, Jadyn Chaudier finishing third and Allyssa Holley fourth.

The Vikings’ Madisyn Holm was second and Danica Jahfetson third in the long jump, while teammate Aybri Sorenson was third in the 800 and Madison Chaudier fourth in the 3,200.

For L’Anse, the 3,200 relay team of Princess Pierre, Dalanna Connor, Lily Froese and Kwynn Voskuhl won in 11:24.72.

Froese was also runner-up in the 3,200 and fourth in the 1,600, while Voskuhl was second and Connor third in the high jump.

And Breyelle Bowers was a double qualifier with fourth places in the 100 and long jump.

Story contents based on an examination of the Superior Timing website, www.superiortiming.com. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.