After String of Second Places, Big Bay Takes Big Step to Top Finals Field
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
May 28, 2026
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.
“Ontonagon’s been a great golf team,” Big Bay de Noc coach Alex Ranguette said. “They’ve actually beaten us the past two years for U.P. Finals, so it feels good to finally get one.”
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, eighth grader Ivy Gates carded a 121 to finish seventh and another eighth grader, Karlee Kuehl, was 10th with a 136.
“The girls came out, started slow,” Ranguette said. “It was a little shaky to begin with, but they really turned it around. I got five girls — two eighth graders this year that just joined who have been very strong for me, two seniors who have been wonderful all year, a junior who placed second. My senior Carrigan placed third.”
Pederson and Thill alternated as Big Bay de Noc’s lowest-scoring golfer all year.
“They both shot well,” Ranguette said. “They just played unreal. They started slow, but they held it together and it was pretty awesome to watch them finish strong.”
Ontonagon graduated important seniors last year, but so did his team. Ranguette said it then came down to the younger golfers – and the results speak for themselves.
“I was fortunate enough to have two young kids that really played well,” he said.
The Gladiators, of course, 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.
“It’s exciting, it’s fun,” Stites said.
She was expected to win this year after being a bit of a surprise winner emerging from a strong competition with her own teammates last year.
“I feel like there’s more pressure on me to play better than I did last year. But I didn’t meet that goal,” said Stites, who won with a 98 a year ago.
Ontonagon coach Jim Jessup is excited she has a chance to make it a three-peat.
“She deserves it, she works really hard,” he said. “She’s improved, unfortunately not to where she wants to be, but she can play really well. We have some more stuff to work on. We got another year for her, so we can do a three-peat, if we’re lucky, if she keeps working on it.”
PHOTOS (Top) Big Bay de Noc’s Caragan Thill lines up a putt during the Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final on Wednesday. (Middle) Ontonagon’s Summer Stites follows her shot. (Photos by Jason Juno.)
Dexter Follows Manning to Team Championship, McCollum Makes Jump to Medalist
By
Tom Lang
Special for MHSAA.com
October 18, 2025
BATTLE CREEK – Dexter’s Avery Manning, an all-state Dream Team selection last year, entered this weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final at Bedford Valley Golf Course as the reigning individual champ on a team that finished runner-up last fall.
The script flipped this year.
Manning led the Dreadnaughts to the Division 2 team championship, while she took third individually with a 154 score.
“We came into this so strong and so ready to do it, and I’m so proud,” she said. “I’m a little sad knowing we say goodbye, but I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to high school golf.
“I was very disappointed in what I did (in Friday’s first round),” she added about shooting a 79 to open in seventh place, “but I grinded out my last six holes and so it put me into a better position and headspace to go into (Saturday) where I was just trying to stay as steady as possible and keep my position and try to keep the lead for my team. I’m proud that I stayed content, even if something went wrong.”
Dexter’s team win helped make up for last year’s runner-up finish to Farmington Hills Mercy, which placed sixth this time with a team total of 718.
The Dreadnaughts’ two-round total of 643 placed ahead of No. 1-ranked Bloomfield Cranbrook Kingswood at 659. Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central and Lowell tied for third at 684 each.
“The girls played amazing today,” Dexter coach Greg Palkowski. “They really brought it to the course. We played aggressive all day long. We told them don’t hold anything back today. Just go get it done and play our style of golf. This is what we’re accustomed to, and they did it today.
“With this group, being in either first or second going into today’s final round, I’m happy with it. It would have been the same mindset (if trailing). Just come out aggressively, get off to a good start, and they did today. That really propelled us through the first nine holes, and they just played steady golf on the whole back nine.”
Palkowski had plenty of reasons to credit a total team effort.
“All five of our girls are capable of shooting the scores they got here,” he said. So, for them to come through and do what they did, especially the seniors today, Avery, Ellie (Anderson) and Millie (Truesdell) played really well. Maddy (Manning) did really well today, and our number 5, Morgan (Pomerantz), played an awesome round today. They knew they could do it; they just needed to prove it today, and they did.”
Sophia McCollum, a junior at Muskegon Reeths-Puffer, was the individual medalist, leading wire-to-wire. Yet that’s not how she would have scripted it.
“I really didn’t want to be leading after the first day,” she said. “I feel like that’s more pressure, to stay at the top. So I definitely felt a lot of pressure, but it got a lot better as it went along.”
McCollum, who tied for 17th last year, said knowing both Saturday playing partners from summer golf helped ease her mind some – as did her start on each hole.
“I got off the tee box well, and I hit almost every green in regulation,” she said. “My putting wasn’t as great. I putted fine, just not my best. But definitely, my irons and my driving were good.”
She kept the pace with a two-round total of 148 to finish ahead of runner-up Sixtine Charnelet of Kingswood (152), with Avery Manning in third. Chaille Payne of Forest Hills Northen and Megan Guerrera of Mercy tied at 155 for fourth place.
PHOTOS (Top) Dexter’s Avery Manning tees off during Saturday’s second round at Battle Creek’s Bedford Valley. (Middle) Muskegon Reeths-Puffer’s Sophia McCollum tees off. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)