Just the diving part of the meet will be held today starting at 2:30 p.m. That’s when the girls participate in their competition, while the boys diving is scheduled to start promptly at 3:13 p.m.

This is an all-division U.P. championship — actually considered by the Michigan High School Athletic Association as a state championship meet — for both boys and girls swimmers and divers.

All divers will perform four dives, with the top 12 advancing to the final round of two more dives for six dives total.

The state sanctioning body at its website at www.mhsaa.com lists nine U.P. teams, five of them actually being cooperatives — Marquette, Westwood, Ishpeming, Manistique, Gladstone, Houghton, Kingsford, Sault Ste. Marie and Rudyard.

Members of multiple teams cheer on swimmers at the halfway point in the 50-yard freestyle during the MHSAA Upper Peninsula Finals in girls swimming and diving held at the Sentinels’ pool in Marquette on Feb. 17, 2024. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

Of the four area teams, only one is a cooperative, Ishpeming, which the MHSAA lists as also including Negaunee, Gwinn and Republic-Michigamme.

Because of the co-ops, Marquette actually isn’t the biggest enrollment of the teams at 1,097 just for its school, with two cooperatives slightly exceeding the Sentinels’ single-school student number.

Houghton comes in at 1,154 combined enrollment for its participating schools, as its co-op also includes five other Copper Country schools — Hancock, Jeffers, Lake Linden-Hubbell, Dollar Bay and Chassell.

Gladstone just barely beats out Marquette at 1,109 as Escanaba joins it, while Kingsford is a bit less than MSHS but still over 1,000 at 1,004 with it including Iron Mountain and Norway.

Ishpeming is next at 890 with its three other schools joining in.

The smallest enrollment team of the nine is Manistique at just 261, with Westwood at 380 and Rudyard’s co-op at 386 the only other enrollments under 800.

Back to the U.P. Finals, though.

About five hours of swimming on Saturday’s schedule commences at 11 a.m. with the 200-yard medley relay. Girls and boys will alternate each event, just like at a regular-season U.P. meet, with the girls going first this year in each event.

The 11 swimming events — diving is the 12th event — proceed through the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 free, 100 butterfly, 100 free, 500 free, 200 free relay, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and finish with the 400 free relay.

The scheduled time for the last event, the boys’ 400 free relay, is at 3:04 p.m.

Most events will have at two heats, with six of them having three, for a total of 50 races to be held Saturday involving 242 entrants, many individual swimmers going multiple times up to the four entries allowed at any meet.

Marquette looks to be the favorite again in both meets, with the Sentinels being the five-time defending champions in the boys meet and three-time defending champ for the girls.

The last time MSHS didn’t win the boys meet was in 2019 when Houghton won its second of two straight U.P. titles; however, Marquette had won the previous four before that dating back to 2014, all with current head coach Nathan McFarren also at the helm.

Sault Ste. Marie in 2021 was the only team in the past six years going back to 2019 to dethrone the Sentinels girls as U.P. champs.

In all, Marquette has won 31 U.P. boys titles dating back to the finals inception in 1980, and its longest streak is 12 in a row from 1991-2002 under four head coaches — Al Bentley (three times), Jackie LeFebzre, Matt Williams (six times) and Kristen Smith.

The Sentinels’ record for its girls teams is almost as good, with 28 titles since the finals inauguration in 1980, which includes 11 in a row from 2002-12 with coaches that include Smith (twice), Williams (five times), James Brooks, Eric Eppensteiner (twice) and McFarren in his first year.

Gwinn also won the girls title in 1994, while Westwood took it from 1982-84 and in 1986. For the boys, Gwinn won in 1980 and 1988, while Westwood won three in a row from 1982-84.

Looking at a sample of the heat sheet, which gives entering times for all the qualifiers for the meet in every event, Marquette has the fastest qualifier in just about half the swimming events — six girls and five boys out of 11 total swim events.

Gladstone has three and Kingsford two of the fastest qualifiers in the girls meet, while both Houghton and Kingsford each have three of the fastest among the boys.

That probably gives the Sentinels two legs up on everyone, probably being able to win it all either with a lot of winning times, or just having overwhelming numbers and picking up many points beyond first place.

Westwood, I-N and Manistique don’t have realistic shots at winning, but could improve their team places with outstanding finishes from their best swimmers — and divers, too.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.