Rivalry Swings Back to Westwood as Patriots Earn 1st Finals Title Since 2021
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
October 1, 2026
NEGAUNEE — Ishpeming Westwood and Negaunee are 10 minutes apart, so they play plenty of tennis against each other whether it’s routine dual meets or the bigger ones with conference and Upper Peninsula championships on the line.
The Miners have been the one winning those meaningful meets lately with the last four U.P. Division 1 titles to their name.
This, however, was Westwood’s year.
The Patriots won the U.P. Finals on Tuesday for the first time since 2021, the last championship before Negaunee’s streak started, with wins in five of the day’s eight flights.
Their mentality was the key to their success this year, coach Sarah Zindler said, and it showed in the way they went up against the Miners.
“They weren’t scared to play Negaunee; they were excited to play Negaunee,” she said. “They were up for the challenge, they wanted to compete. When they were down in a match, they had that mentality of, ‘I can still win this,’ not the defeated (attitude) after you lose a point. That can sometimes be hard, especially for seniors on a U.P. Finals day where they know it’s their last matches.”
Eliisa Doney is one of those seniors. She talked about seeing Negaunee lifting up trophies in front of them in recent years. So, yeah, this one felt pretty good.
But regardless of the rivalry, she won at No. 2 singles after playing doubles the majority of her career. Her last memories of high school tennis at Westwood are pretty good.
“I’ve never been (a U.P. champion) individually or as a team before, so it’s an incredible feeling that I’ve never felt before,” she said.
Doney played doubles as an underclassmen, missed her junior year with an injury and then filled a spot as Westwood battled other injuries this season. She beat Negaunee’s Addie Chapman 6-2, 7-5 in their flight final Wednesday.
“She just took on the challenge and her first couple matches were a little rocky, but she had that competitive attitude of, ‘I’m gonna figure it out,’” Zindler said. “And now she’s a U.P. champ.”
So are many of her teammates.
Westwood’s Emmi Carlson won No. 3 singles and finished the season with just one loss. Despite that, she trailed Negaunee’s Lucy Rogers 5-2 in the first set of the final.
“And she told us, ‘I got this, I’m gonna win this set 7-5,’” Zindler said. “And she won the set 7-5. And that’s how she’s been all season. If she loses three or four games, she’s like, ‘It’s fine, no big deal, I got this.’”
Carlson won 7-5, 6-2.
Westwood’s Isabel Belpedio beat Negaunee’s Katie Carlson in their final to become the No. 4 singles champion. Belpedio went undefeated in her first year on varsity.
“I played a calm, consistent game,” she said. “I just played my best, and I gave what I had. It feels pretty great … like all the hard work I put in definitely (paid) off.”
“She has also just been steady and confident and knows how to play her game, doesn’t try to do too much and doesn’t let the other girls get in her head,” Zindler added.
The No. 3 doubles team of Emerson Williams and Samiah LaFreniere came out on top over Negaunee’s Bree Helppi and Audrey Hahn in their final despite entering as the third seed. They had lost to Negaunee just last week.
Williams was a part of the winning No. 4 doubles team last year. Since then, she suffered an injury and had to play this entire season left-handed, which is her non-dominant hand.
“They played a great semifinal match, and then in finals just looked like they were confident. They played the net well, they played smart from the back,” Zindler said. “They weren’t the unexpected victory but the wild card that we really needed today for our team.”
The winning No. 4 doubles team was Westwood’s freshmen Jenna Marana and Brie Mahaffey, who just picked up a racket during the summer.
“From the start of the season until now, they have just continually grown and improved,” Zindler said. “I just kept saying, ‘You guys are going to be there, you just got to keep working on it.’ And today, they're the best four doubles team.”
Kingsford junior Aubrie Moore repeated as a U.P. champion with a dominating 6-0, 6-0 win over Escanaba’s Anna Martin at No. 1 singles.
“I’m feeling good, I’m really happy and I’m glad,” Moore said. “It’s my second year, so I’m just really proud of myself. I think I really improved on my serving, and my forehand has gotten a lot better.”
Moore and the entire team played with “We play for her,” shirts with the initials GM in honor of her mom Ginger, who died after battling cancer earlier this year.
“Obviously my mom was by my side the whole time and helped me get through this and win,” Moore said.
Negaunee’s No. 1 doubles team of Paige O’Donnell and Olivia Richards won as juniors.
O’Donnell said Marquette has been tough for them and she was focused on doing well in their match to help out their entire team.
“We played Marquette a couple times, it’s always been super competitive, always super back and forth, usually going to some tiebreakers,” Richards said. “We were kind of expecting that going into it, but we saw their weaknesses in the first set and we knew we had to capitalize on those while also working together.”
Negaunee’s Maia Brunette and Aubrey Harper defeated Escanaba’s Isabella Noblet and Lily Benetti for the No. 2 doubles title.
PHOTOS (Top) Ishpeming Westwood’s Eliisa Doney sends a forehand during a match Wednesday at No. 2 singles. (Middle) Kingsford’s Aubrie Moore returns a volley at No. 1 singles. (Below) Marquette’s Charlotte Thomsen reaches out to return a shot. (Photos by Jason Juno.)
Performance: Munising's Marissa Ackerman
October 6, 2017
Marissa Ackerman
Munising senior – Tennis
Ackerman capped her second straight undefeated season with the Upper Peninsula Division 2 championship at No. 1 singles. She defeated every No. 1 singles player in the Upper Peninsula this season and lost only one set, in her semifinal, during the Sept. 27 Finals to earn the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.”
A five-sport athlete, Ackerman also plays libero for the volleyball team during the fall, basketball and then softball and runs track in the spring. She was 13-0 on the tennis court this season, following a 13-0 junior year as a No. 2 singles champion and a 10-1 sophomore campaign where her only loss came in the U.P. Finals also at No. 2. She finished her four-year varsity career 42-7 playing no lower than No. 2, and did so while Munising played all of its matches on the road as it doesn’t have home courts. Her school, in Class D with just more than 200 students, plays tennis in the Great Northern Conference with the U.P.’s biggest schools, and she won the No. 1 singles league title as well. The Mustangs won two U.P. Finals team titles during her career, in 2015 and shared with Ishpeming Westwood in 2016.
Ackerman was followed in the singles lineup by twin sister Kelsea, and they’ve pushed each other to be better both in sports and in the classroom – the pair both have grade-point averages near 3.9. Marissa has an opportunity to play basketball at the college level but isn’t sure if she wants to continue in that sport or tennis. She’s also unsure what she’ll study after high school, although the medical field appears to be calling: her sister wants to be a nurse, her brother is studying physical therapy, her mom is a dietician at the local hospital and her dad is a nurse and director of the intensive care unit at the hospital in Marquette. Ackerman is interning at the hospital currently and considering becoming a physical therapist or athletic trainer.
Coach Rod Gendron said: “Marissa is one of the most competitive players I have coached. She plays to win and is all business on the court. Marissa knows when to play offensively, but understands how to use her extraordinary defense skills. To win a point against Marissa, you will need to hit several great shots, but that ball will keep coming back over and over. She literally wears opponents out mentally and physically. I admire how she can take a player’s strength away during a match. She forces players to over-hit, because they think they have to hit better and harder shots to win each point, which plays into her strategy. Marissa is athletic and agile on the court. She is a dual-sport athlete in the fall playing volleyball too. Plus, she starts on the basketball team, and runs track and plays softball in the spring.”
Performance Point: “During the finals, I knew it was going to be a hard match because last year the number one girl that played for us (Frankie Mattson) beat the girl I played (Iron River West Iron County’s Katarina Serbentas) for the finals, and she was pretty good so I was nervous about that,” Ackerman said. “I had a bye the first round and I had to get over playing against Ishpeming (in the semifinal), and I started off really slow and really nervous. Me losing that (second) set and going into a third set, it really showed me you have to work to get what you need to get done and that anybody can beat you if you’re having an off day. After I beat (Ishpeming) I was telling myself, ‘You need to step up your game and really get focused.’”
5-sport scholar: “You really have to be on your game whether it’s sports or school. On the buses a lot of us would be studying with each other or helping each other with homework. Definitely, homework is first and sports are second. We’d always have school and then practice, and then usually after practice my sister and me go home and study. We have a really busy day, but I really don’t like not doing anything, sitting around, and it keeps me active and always having something to do.”
Sisterly assistance: “We get really competitive. I’m really defensive (in tennis) and she is very offensive, so she has a lot of winner shots on me. But there’s a lot of shots where she thinks she has a winner and somehow I get it back. She’s a great challenge to play with. We started tennis with my grandma (Munising assistant Claudia VanLandschoot) when we were at least 3 or 5, and it just stuck. Having somebody always there with you – and we always want to get better at whatever we’re doing whether it’s basketball, tennis, any sport that we play – we always compete to get better. And by pushing each other, we know we’re going to get better.”
Net gains: “I definitely see myself as very confident in volleyball and tennis, more so in tennis because it’s an individual sport. But for volleyball I play back row libero, so I have a huge part in our team and how we execute our plays. One bad pass could lead to not setting up our executions right. That same focus I have during tennis is always with me during volleyball, during matches.”
Good and bad of good-bye: “It’s really heart-breaking to see all the years of tennis just go by. It’s crazy how fast the whole season goes, and I’m really happy about the outcome and my team. But (having only volleyball left this fall) makes it easier on my body. I was super tired and exhausted and sore, and now I’m just sore in my legs from volleyball. … I’m happy I have more recovery time in my body, but at the same time I’m super sad tennis is over.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2017-18 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2017-18 honorees:
September 28: Minh Le, Portage Central soccer - Read
September 21: Olivia Theis, Lansing Catholic cross country - Read
September 14: Maddy Chinn, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball - Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Munising's Marissa Ackerman returns a volley during a match against Gwinn this season. (Middle) Ackerman connects during her run to the No. 1 singles title at the Great Northern Conference tournament. (Photos by the Marquette Mining Journal.)