West Iron County’s Berutti to coach Red Team in All-Star game
MARQUETTE — West Iron County head coach Mike Berutti will lead the Red Team in the UP Football All-Star Game.
The game will be played in Marquette at the Superior Dome on Saturday, June 30. Game time is set for 1 p.m. EDT, with doors opening at noon.
The schedule, coaches and players for this year’s event have been finalized, according to coordinator Todd Goldbeck.
“This marks the 11th year of the UP summer football classic,” Goldbeck said. “Last year there was a major change made in dividing up the players when it was decided that the coaches would conduct a fantasy draft of the invited players.
“Coaches could pick whichever players they wanted on their respective teams, regardless of what schools the players or coaches were from.”
For the first nine years, the game pitted East against West or North against South.
“The draft was such a big hit with everyone last year that the players will be picked in the same manner again this year,” said Goldbeck, indicating Red and Black squads.
The draft will take place Saturday.
West Iron assistants Chris Thomson, Kevin Leonoff, Chris Soha and Kevin Grundy will help out Berutti with the Red Team. Former Iron Mountain and West Iron County football assistant Rae Drake is also on the Red staff with Neil Clapp of Escanaba and Jeff Olson of Ishpeming.
Al Stenberg of Bark River-Harris will guide the Black Team with Broncos assistants Bob Maycroft and Kevin Mileski along with Westwood’s Scott Syrjala, Brad Wiljanen, Luke Gray and Mitchell Messing.
Twenty-five players from the Iron Mountain-Kingsford are available for the draft:
Forest Park — Connor Bortolini, Jonah Logan, Robert Ponchaud, Zach Robarge and Peter Ropiak
Iron Mountain — Jacob Tucker
Kingsford — Liam Gayan, Chase Kreski, Sawyer Perpich, Eddie Plumley, Joseph Rietveld, Preston Strong and Jon Sturm
North Central — Hunter Riley
North Dickinson — Jared Miller, Mike Miller
Norway — Joshua Boulden, Connor Ortman, Dante Pedrotti, Josh Plante, Micah Wilson
West Iron County — Jayce Brockhagen, Brandon Henschel, Austin Persson, Neil Tomasoski