Marquette leads the charge in Upper Peninsula League

The Great Northern U.P. is led by Marquette at 4-1. Like all leagues this time of year, we’ve got great interleague matchups on tap in the coming weeks. Let’s review the Great Northern U.P. league and highlight standout athletes. <span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Standings</strong></span> <strong>(4-1) Marquette: </strong>Led by the offensive duo of QB <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/13270878/Austin-Ridl">Austin Ridl</a> and WR <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/11814035/Justin-Jurmu">[player_tooltip player_id="99327" first="Justin" last="Jurmu"]</a>, Marquette holds a nice lead in the UP and is looking like one of the better teams in Division III football. Marquette did well last year, eventually being knocked out of the playoffs by Muskegon. I have Marquette as a sure playoff team, but the question is how far can they go? <strong>(3-2) Menominee: </strong>Menominee, a Division 6 squad, has been playing some decent football winning their close games and traveling a long way to do so. Big 6’4 T/DE Cooper Conway leads the charge for a team that has some big league matchups against Escanaba and Marquette coming up. If Menominee can find a way to keep winning, they’re a good playoff team. <strong>(2-3) Gladstone: </strong>Another D6 team, Gladstone needs to find a way to string some wins together in the back half of the season. Gladstone also has a big Tackle in 6’3 <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/11535310/Hunter-Potier">Hunter Potier, </a>and good receiver talent in <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/11533748/John-Hansen">John Hansen</a>. They’ve got some matchups against us trolls down south, and if they can win them, they’ve got a good shot at the playoffs. <strong>(1-4) Escanaba: </strong>It hasn’t been Escanaba’s year thus far as they’ve lost 4 straight in a decisive fashion. Though Escanaba isn’t without talent, as they have a great freshman duo of <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/16632212/Hunter-Portillo">Hunter Portillo</a> and <a href="https://www.hudl.com/profile/16641994/Cody-Noel">Cody Noel</a> at the guard and tackle spots. It seems like program building year for Escanaba, though I’m optimistic that they can be competitive for the remainder of the season.