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All-Star Football Game Brings Together UP Seniors


Click the thumbnails to see photos taken by Jayger Quinn

MARQUETTE---
The Upper Peninsula High School All-Star football game, resurrected by the Marquette County sports training company AdvantEdge, went off without a hitch on Saturday in the Superior Dome, with the Red team knocking off the Black team, 49-25.

The awards from the game are as follows:

RED TEAM
Offensive Most Valuable Player....Trevor Theuerkauf (Menominee)
Defensive Most Valuable Player....Kaydin Lujan (Sault Ste. Marie)
Audette Character Award----Kai Lacar (Negaunee)

BLACK TEAM
Offensive Most Valuable Player....Matthew Colovecchi (Iron Mountain)
Defensive Most Valuable Player....Ben Johnson (Escanaba)
Audette Character Award----James Thomson (Negaunee)

The All-Star game was cancelled by previous organizer Excel Phyical Fitness, and founder Todd Goldbeck, in August, 2023. A week later, AdvantEdge owner Dustin Brancheau, announced that he would bring the game back. This summer, the game, and all of the events normally held in the days before the game, were all carried out largely the way they had been in the past.

That included a banquet, community service project, and the kids from around the Upper Peninsula staying together in the forms on the Northern Michigan University campus. The Black team had a roster of 42 players, and the Red team had 44 players. They were divided onto their teans during a draft held back in March.

Jake Witt, a Ewen-Trout Creek and Northern Michigan University alum, who was drafted by the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, was involved in the festivities on the field. He trained with Brancheau at AdvantEdge prior to being drafted by the Colts.