(Marguerite Lanthier/Daily News photo) Iron Mountain senior Foster Wonders has been selected as one of the six male finalists for the 2021 Detroit Athletic Club Michigan High School Athlete of the Year award. Wonders was nominated by Iron Mountain athletic director Donny Bianco, who is pictured far left next to Wonders. Also pictured at right are Wonders’ parents, Matt and Julie Wonders. The award recipients, one male and one female, will be announced on June 14 at the club’s annual gala in Detroit.

IRON MOUNTAIN — Annually for over the past two decades, the Detroit Athletic Club awards one male and one female with a Michigan High School Athlete of the Year award. For the past dozen years or so, each spring the club announces six male and six female finalists.

This year, and for the first time ever, a male athlete from north of the Mackinac Bridge is a finalist: Iron Mountain senior basketball player Foster Wonders. The 12 finalists and their families will attend the club’s annual gala on June 14, where the two winners, one male and one female, will be honored as the 2021 award winners.

“It was a great honor to be selected,” Wonders said via text message Monday night. “The finalists banquet last week was a great experience and I look forward to the gala in June.”

Dating back to the late 1990s, former Duke University and NBA player Shane Battier and former NY Yankees shortstop and University of Michigan quarterback Drew Henson were named award winners. More recently, current Washington Wizards player and former Big 10 Player of the Year for Michigan State, Cassius Winston, was selected.

Winston won the DAC male athlete of the year award in 2016, along with winning Michigan’s Mr. Basketball that same year. Winston’s former MSU teammate and current Spartan Foster Loyer was a finalist in 2018 out of Clarkston High School.

Wonders becomes the fifth U.P. athlete to be a finalist for the award. Most recently, in 2020, Escanaba standout softball player Gabrinna Salo was a finalist.

Forest Park and Michigan State girls basketball player Lexi Gussert was a DAC finalists in 2014, the same season she won Michigan’s Miss Basketball award.

Former St. Ignace and University of Michigan hoops player Krista Clement was also a finalist in 2004, as well as volleyball and cross country star Natalie Cahill of Sault Ste. Marie, in 2002.