Clara Johnson (Negaunee, Michigan) signed her letter of intent to play women’s basketball at MTU next year. “Clara is an unbelievable person and player,” Michigan Tech head coach Kim Cameron said. “She is a Husky through and through with both of her parents graduating from Michigan Tech and her mom is a former women’s basketball player. Her leadership and love of the game made her no-brainer for our program. One thing that stood out with Clara was her continuous improvement. Every time we watched her play she became more confident, creative, and an overall better player. She is a shifty person who has an offensive skill set that makes her a threat from everywhere on the floor. She has grown her game to be able to score and get her shot off against any defender.”
Johnson finished her senior season at Negaunee High School scoring 12.7 points per game while averaging 2.7 rebounds a game. She shot 32.2 percent from three-point range, while shooting 71.4 percent from the free throw line. Johnson was also named to the UP-class ABC first-team. She was selected to the Mid-Peninsula All-Conference first-team her sophomore, junior, and senior seasons. She also received BCAM Academic All-State honors.
Jacob Witt (Bruce Crossing, Michigan) signed his letter of intent to play men’s basketball at MTU next year. “Jacob Witt is a big strong UP kid that we are really excited to bring in,” Michigan Tech head coach Kevin Luke said. “He’s an excellent post player and will bring size, strength, defense, rebounding, and scoring to the post position. He is very athletic and can step out and shoot so he is going to be a player that’s tough to defend. In addition, he has the size and strength to play at the college level entering his final year of high school. We expect Jacob to have an outstanding career as a Husky.”
Witt finished with over 1,000 points and over 1,000 rebounds in his high school career. Basketball wasn’t the only sport Witt was a standout in. He won various eight-man football awards for Ewen-Trout Creek and Ontonagon. He also set a MHSAA eight-man record finishing his junior season with 25 touchdown catches, while also making 71 catches for 1,698 yards. Just this year alone, Witt was named to the MHSAA Class D All-State First Team, named Mr. UP for the best basketball player in the UP, averaged 27 points while averaging 17 rebounds, and was on the All-UP Dream Team.
Witt went surprisingly unnoticed by other colleges throughout his high school career, as his only other Division Two offer was from Northern Michigan University to play football. However, he was pursued by one Division One school the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay for basketball and received interest from Northwestern University for football. Grand Valley State and Ferris State each had interest in Witt in both basketball and football, but never offered. We can suspect that since Witt came from an un-known place that’s not close to much of anything, he couldn’t get the publicity that other athletes of his caliber of athleticism got in bigger areas.
Johnson will be joined by fellow 2018 recruiting class members Jordan Ludesher (Glen Flora, Wisconsin), Ellie Mackay (Novi, Michigan), and Alex Rondorf (West Bend, Wisconsin).
Witt will be joined by fellow 2018 recruiting class members Owen White (Rhinelander, Wisconsin) and Eric Carl (Kaukana, Wisconsin).
The Michigan Tech women’s basketball team will be looking to continue off a successful 23-6 season with a trip to the NCAA tournament. The Michigan Tech men’s basketball team will be looking to continue to improve as they are coming off of a 15-14 season with a trip to the GLIAC tournament semi-final.
