For the Final Time: U.P. Football All-Star Game
Marquette, Mich. – Eighty of the best senior football players the Upper Peninsula had to offer got to play one last game in their high school colors.
Players from the Black and Red All-star Teams faced off at the Superior Dome on NMU’s campus.
The seniors left it all out on the field with the Black team ultimately winning 38-26.
Kameron Karp of Marquette, who signed to play both football and basketball for NMU, scored three total touchdowns (2 receiving, 1 rushing) on his way to earning Offensive MVP honors for the black team.
“This week meant everything to me,” Karp told ABC 10 Sports. “I never thought the day would come where me and Ty [Lotterman] would play our last game together and today was that day, and I’m just thankful we got one more game together and we came out of the game with a victory.”
The Black team’s defensive MVP was Escanaba’s Colin Arnt and the Jack Audette Character Award went to Isaac Codere of Lake Linden-Hubbell
Every player enjoyed the week leading up to the game and the moments they had with their teammates. For some, it would be their last time wearing a football uniform
No one embodied the fun of All-Star week more than Caleb Evosevich-Hynes from Iron Mountain.
The moment when he pulled out a cell phone from inside the goal post pads for a selfie with his teammates after a touchdown, was a crowd and media favorite.
“Eli Luokkala [of Negaunee] had our phones in the end-zone there, stuffed in the pad,” said Evosevich-Hynes when asked about where the idea came from. “We were just taking a picture for our celebration because they were allowing us to celebrate. It was just something we had to do.”
Westwood’s Garrett Mann received defensive MVP for the Red team and Gogebic’s Jaakob Fyle earned the Jack Audette Character Award
The Jack Audette Character Award was new this year, named for Jack Audette from North Dickinson who played in the first All-Star Game in 2008.
Both Fyle and Codere earned a $500 scholarship for winning the award.
Red team coach Al Stenberg told ABC 10 Sports that players and coaches enjoyed the chance to bond during this “last ride” together.
“The thing that I find the most rewarding is right before the game is going out and talking to each individual on my team [Red team],” Stenberg said on media day. “Just thanking them for the week and the effort they put in. Just seeing the look in their eyes, a lot of these kids are playing the last football game of their lives. I just have a great deal of respect for the players and appreciation for the fact that they are playing the sport that I love.”