After watching a couple of nights of the 2025 Ashland High School Summer League, I've come to the following five conclusions/thoughts:
1) Mellen was the most impressive Northern Lights Conference team competing in the summer league. No real surprise hearing this considering they won the conference titles in 2025 and return the conference POY in Xander Beeksma. Returning All-Northern Lights Honorable Mention selections in Bryce Maier and Hayden Lawver should help make the Granite Diggers a team to beat in the upcoming season. The first game I watched them play in summer league they lost to Division 3 Ashland by 1 point in overtime. They have a bunch of very good athletes and don't get rattled by a ton of different tempos being thrown at them. Add in some younger talent, and that should free some things up for the names listed above. Hurley wasn't in the summer league, but they should be the top competitor for Mellen.
2) Chequamegon senior, Cooper Michalski, looks like he is one of the best seniors in Northern Wisconsin. The Screaming Eagles aren't exactly known as a basketball powerhouse, but they tend to have a player every couple of years who can play. Cooper excels with his athleticism, but has really improved his jump shot over the last couple of years. Measured at 6'4", he makes himself an one-on-one matchup nightmare, especially after he led the conference in scoring as a junior at 23.0 points per game. With help from other seniors (Jarrett Heckendorf, Marcus Purdy, and Ian Schloer) Chequamegon should be able to improve last years win total of three, but they will need to be locked in. The Marawood-North Conference has a really deep senior class, so there will be a lot of good battles.
3) Ashland is probably a year away from being really competitive. They should show signs of improvement this season, but it appears their best talent is in their sophomore and junior classes. Gavin Greene (HM All-Heart O' North) should become more of a focal point this season and the 6'5" junior had some really good games this summer on the AAU circuit. If he can start to dominate games (not just scoring) on a consistent basis, the Oredockers could become a tough out over the next two seasons. Potentially their biggest concern is going to be a lack of height, but I expect that the toughness is going to be there from them. The Heart O' North was a very senior dominated conference last season, this could be a year where you see a little more shake up in the standings.
4) It will be interesting to see improvements from Hayward in year two of the up-tempo style of play. They looked more settled in with it during summer league, but that's always tough to know what you are going against. Picking up the tempo usually takes time for younger athletes to figure out and not drown in choice. Last season they scored the 5th amount of points (69.75 offensive points per game), but also allowed the 2nd most points (78.67 defensive points per game) in the Northwoods. If they can shrink that gap, or flip those numbers, I'd assume they will be on an upward trajectory. Senior Lucas Hansen (2nd-Team All-Heart O' North) and sophomore Adel Amparo should help the team stay on course.
5) Aaron Christenson from Drummond will be a junior to keep an eye on. I'll be excited to see how he does following a sophomore season where he was a 1st-Team All-Northern Lights Conference selection. He did a little bit of everything during summer league, and was a big reason why Drummond won/was competitive. The 6'1" guard made a lot of tough threes, got to the hoop well, and rebounded the ball at a high rate (especially offensively). My thoughts when recruiting players from small high schools was they needed to fit three criteria: 1) score/make your teammates better, 2) you should be getting a lot of rebounds, and 3) defend at a high rate/guard the other teams best player. Christenson appears to be a tough enough player that he could do all of those things by the end of his high school career.
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