Todd Rose | Daily Press Bark River-Harris’ Cara Zawacki (left) plays in the Great Northern Conference Fall League at Gladstone Sunday.

GLADSTONE — Over the last five weekends, the Gladstone High School gymnasium hosted the Great Northern Basketball High School Fall League Sunday mornings.

The league consisted of six boys teams made up of 60 players and four girls teams made up of about 40.

Players came from schools across the Upper Peninsula — Escanaba, Gladstone, Bark River-Harris, Rapid River, Hannahville, North Central, Manistique, Menominee, Munising, Norway, Stephenson, Jeffers, Negaunee, Westwood, Iron Mountain and St. Ignace — to compete over the course of the five-week play.

“This is, I think, the fifth year we’ve done this,” said Gladstone girls varsity basketball coach Andy Cretens. “It’s been an awesome experience for a lot of these kids. It’s perfect timing (because) they can still do this while they’re playing their fall sport but also get ready for their upcoming basketball season and kind of knock the rust off.”

Each week, the six boys teams and four girls teams played two games under minimal outside coaching input.

“We try to split them up as evenly as possible,” said Cretens. “They play two games and kind of coach themselves. It allows them to kind of learn the game on their own without being coached. And we get kids from all over the place.

“The cool part about it is they get to play with different people. They get to learn from different people. Some people only play with their teams and don’t do anything else besides that. So, it’s a good learning experience to learn how to play with other people. Pretty soon, in the real world, they’re going to have to learn how to work with other people.”

Among the 60 boys participants were four players from the Jeffers Jets — Isiah Frahm, Levi Frahm, John Schutz and Matthew Shutz — who made the near three-hour trip weekly to compete.

Jeffers boys varsity coach John Schutz said the League — which came through an invite from the Bay College program — was well worth it.

“We got an invite from the Bay coach, and we took four of our guys down. They wanted to come,” coach Schutz said. “It’s a little bit of a long ride for us, but it was a good experience, good exposure for them, it was just a good time for them. They had a lot of fun.”

Coach Schutz, like Cretens, noted the added benefit of playing with kids from around the U.P. that the Jeffers boys wouldn’t normally get the chance to as a big positive from the League.

This year’s League marked the resumption of the Fall League after last year’s program was canceled due to COVID-19.