Two Peninsulas Are Better Than One? A Hypothetical Statewide XC Championship
With UP and LP soccer finally being merged after years of separation (this had to go to court for some reason), there have been slight rumblings about a similar change to XC and/or track. That seems unlikely at this point, considering UP soccer didn't even have a state tournament while XC and track very much do, but what this article supposes is: what if that happened? Let's take the 2022 XC season and see how the state meet would've looked if both peninsulas competed together.
The Basics
Merging the two peninsulas messes with the division cutoffs quite a bit. Most UP schools are very small - Marquette is usually the only one with a LP D1 enrollment number, and just 4-5 more fit into D2 most years. This causes a massive shift of schools up the division hierarchy:
UP teams are in bold here - you can see that most of the divisional changes end up being LP teams.
The seasons are also somewhat different currently, with UP finals occurring in mid-October. In the interest of fairness, I've given UP teams and athletes the benefit of the doubt in these rankings whenever necessary.
Generally though, the process is as follows:
- Realign regionals as needed to balance out the arriving and departing teams.
- Combine ratings from LP regionals (from Matt Armelagos) and UP finals (from my estimates) to determine state qualifiers.
- Combine ratings from LP finals and UP finals to determine team and individual rankings.
Division 1
Our only Yoopers in D1 are Marquette. The UP's biggest school had an excellent season, especially the boys, who finished 14th at Spartan and 10th at Portage. Their #1 runner Carson VanderSchaaf (now at EMU) had a rough day at UP finals, but as mentioned before, it's probably best to give him the benefit of the doubt here and use his early-season results.
Rockford makes states (replacing Zeeland West) because of some regional movement necessitated by the girls. D2 powers Zeeland East and St Joseph both arrive in D1 with the divisional shifts, resulting in this:
Division 2
D2 boys may be the least affected in 2022 in this alternate universe. It's almost impressive.
The girls, however, see a lot more change. As mentioned earlier, St Joseph and Zeeland East are both gone, and several top D3 runners now find themselves in D2. However, the UP teams themselves still aren't having much of an effect. (Yet.)
Division 3
With D3's northernmost region now 50% Yooper, it's not hard to get a state qualifying spot. Negaunee, 4th in UP D1 in real life, does just that, and Gladstone senior Drew Hughes converts his UP runner-up finish into an all-state medal at MIS. And in a possible preview of Real 2023, Potter's House moves up a division and still manages to win comfortably.
The D3 girls' race is mostly defined by all those who left for D2. Seven D3 all-staters moved up, and all are replaced by existing D3 runners. Still no UP teams qualifying for girls.
Division 4
With the vast majority of UP schools falling into LP D4, it's no surprise that we get our biggest effects here. One and a half regions are now UP-based, guaranteeing at least 3 UP teams at MIS - and for both boys and girls, at least one additional UP squad managed to qualify. UP D2 champs Painesdale Jeffers get the highest placement of any UP team, and Dollar Bay's Amos Norland makes the top ten individually.
The girls, if anything, are even more affected. Hancock (UP D2 champ) and Munising (UP D3 champ) both appear on the left-hand side of the scoreboard, Ishpeming's Lola Korpi would likely be a lock for top 5, and Newberry gets two all-state spots.
Conclusion
There are valid reasons why the peninsulas don't combine in XC and track. It's a travel nightmare, training and competition seasons can be significantly shorter in the UP due to weather, and it's possible that very few UP teams would get much hardware in a combined state championship. Nonetheless, I'd be very interested to know what Yooper coaches and athletes think about the idea!
It's worth noting, too, that we do see successful UP teams in combined sports. Ishpeming has 5 football state titles, while North Central has set up quite the dynasty at the 8-man level, winning 3 D2 championships in a row. Houghton and Calumet are D3 hockey powerhouses, Escanaba won back-to-back softball titles in 2018-19, and Marquette has won several skiing championships. Who's to say that Lola Korpi or Gabe Litzner couldn't be competitive in the Lower Peninsula?
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