WATERSMEET — Big Bay de Noc’s girls golf team has finished runner-up the past three years at the Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final.

First, the Black Bears finished second to a Cedarville team in the last season of a three-year championship run. Then the last two years, they took second behind traditional U.P. power Ontonagon.

Wednesday, it was finally their turn.

Big Bay de Noc won at Lac Vieux Desert Golf Course in Watersmeet, breezing past the second-place Gladiators 475-532 to win its first Finals title since 2005.

The Black Bears did it with four golfers placing among the top 10 compared to two for Ontonagon.

Junior Payton Pederson placed second with a 108, senior Caragan Thill tied for third with a 110.Pederson and Thill alternated as Big Bay de Noc’s lowest-scoring golfer all year.

Ontonagon still went home with a couple of trophies. Besides the runner-up hardware, junior Summer Stites repeated as a U.P. champion.

She shot a 103, which was five strokes better than Pederson.

North Dickinson’s Aunika Lindholm had a 118 to tie for fifth.