Kingsford’s Cole Myllyla (12) tries to exploit a running lane created by his teammates during the Flivvers’ MHSAA Division 5 playoff win over visiting Kingsley 34-30 on Oct. 28, 2022. Myllyla is one of several local football players set to participate in the U.P. Football All-Star Game on Saturday at the Superior Dome in Marquette. (Dennis Mansfield/Daily News file photo)

MARQUETTE — High school football fans will have one more chance to see many of their favorite gridiron standouts play before the graduating student-athletes go onto other pursuits as Black and Red teams take the field for the Upper Peninsula Football All-Star Game on Saturday at the Superior Dome on the campus of Northern Michigan University.

The Black Team will feature a plethora of names that local football fans will recognize, including Iron Mountain gridders Riley Gauthier, Colin Schneider, Bradon Farragh, Marcus Verrette and coach Robin Marttila, as well as Kingsford Flivvers Nic Nora and Cole Myllyla. After winning their third consecutive MHSAA Division 2 8-player title, a quartet of North Central Jets — Luke Gorzinski, Dylan Plunger, Owen Eichmeier and Andrew Webber, as well as coach Leo Gorzinski — are on the Black Team roster, along with Norway’s Michael Peterson and North Dickinson’s Matthew Steinbrecher.

And, they’ll face some familiar rivals and even former teammates on the Red Team, which is set to include Iron Mountain’s Joey Colavecchi, Forest Park’s Reagan Alder and Sam McKissack, former Jets Dillon Raab and Jordan Messenger, and West Iron County coach Mike Berutti.

While the Western U.P. is well represented, the area surrounding Marquette seemingly dominates both rosters for this year’s all-star game. More than a third of the players scheduled to take part are from nine area high schools in the region surrounding Marquette.

While the breakdown of players isn’t always reflective of the strength of area teams, in this case it’s easy to see why Negaunee leads the way with eight players and Munising is second with six.

That team strength may not be reflective in the players chosen, since the game is only open to already graduated seniors. In addition, some players may be unable or just simply not want to participate.

The Marquette area’s 10 football-playing schools contributed 28 of the 78 players on the game’s rosters, according to its website, www.upfootballallstargame.com.

That’s 36% of the players, who were drawn from 38 football-playing schools that were in the Upper Peninsula during the 2022 fall season.

And Negaunee and Munising ruled the roost when it came to the U.P. and almost the entire state.

The Miners reached the MHSAA Division 6 state championship game in 11-player football before falling to Grand Rapids West Catholic in the finals at Ford Field in Detroit the day after Thanksgiving.

And Munising came up just one step short of that, reaching the semifinals in Division 1 eight-player football before a home loss to Merrill on a snowy field in mid-November ended the Mustangs’ season.

Not surprisingly, it was senior leadership that was often credited by their coaches for Mustangs’ success during the 2022 season.

Seniors like Negaunee’s Jed Anderson, Brayden Dunstan, Nico Lukkarinen, Philip Nelson and Easton Palomaki, who were chosen by the All-Star Black Team coaches.

Or the Miners’ Nathan Keough, Drake Spickerman and Eli VanBuren, who were picked by Red Team coaches.

After game organizers sent out invitations to players to participate, the respective Black and Red team coaches held a draft via Zoom on March 11 to select who would play on each team. This has become a decade-long ritual after the traditional East-West or North-South geographic splits of players produced a lot of lopsided results in the game’s early years.

Though it couldn’t have been much of a secret about Negaunee’s wealth of talent, it didn’t hurt that two members of the seven-man coaching staff for the Black squad were Miners’ head coach Paul Jacobson and NHS assistant Sam Gilles.

For that matter, former Ishpeming and state hall of fame coach Jeff Olson joined them on the Black staff that is headed up by past Lake Linden-Hubbell head coach Andy Crouch.

Red coaches include team head coach Brad Wiljanen, who is a Westwood assistant coach. Four of the team’s five assistant coaches are also from the area — Patriots head coach Jake Wolf, Munising head man Matt Mattson, Superior Central head coach Josh Trader and Ishpeming assistant coach Gavin Sundberg.

The Munising connection might explain four of the six Mustangs involved were chosen by the Red squad — Jacob Mattson, Riley Murk, Josiah Peramaki and Ashton Wymer.

Black got a couple of the Munising stars, though — Kane Nebel and Micaiah Peramaki.

Two more playoff squads from last fall — Ishpeming in 11-player Division 8 and Newberry in eight-player Division 1 — have three players each in the game.

All three Hematites are on Black, Preston Gauthier, AJ Prosser and Aidan Rajala; as are two of the three from Newberry — Blake Doke and Marco Juarez.

The other Indians player in the game will be with Red, Zach Burton.

Westwood, L’Anse and Superior Central have two representatives apiece, while Marquette and Manistique have one each.

Those players are the Patriots’ Jerzee Karki on the Black team and Max Wiljanen on Red; the Purple Hornets’ Javon Shelifoe on Black and Dean Magaraggia on Red; the Cougars’ Wyatt Kulik and Lucas Swetich, both on Red; the Redmen’s Nate Benninger on Red; and the Emeralds’ Ross Pugh on Red.

In the end, it would be hard to root for either team based on area participation and the number of different schools being represented.

Game time is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Superior Dome. Tickets are $7 per person and fans are urged to order online at NMU Tickets, nmu.universitytickets.com

Organizers donate proceeds each year to several U.P. high school football programs.

Events leading up to the game this week include check-in and food donation dropoff that was held Monday, media day in the dome on Tuesday, a skills challenge in the dome on Wednesday afternoon, a youth football camp back in the dome on Thursday evening and the all-star banquet on Friday night at the Bottum University Center at Northern Michigan.

In addition, players will run through two practices a day for most of this week trying to get back into the playing shape they were in last fall.

— Report compiled by Mining Journal sports editor Steve Brownlee and Daily News sports editor Dennis Mansfield.