Throughout his life, Andy Marwede has always worn the Alpena name proudly on his jersey.

In just a few months that will change as Marwede made it official on Wednesday, signing his letter of intent to continue his basketball career at Division II Urbana University in Ohio.

“There was a few schools I was looking at, but I liked the atmosphere of Urbana because it reminded me a lot of Alpena as far as the size. I was able to meet some of the players and a lot of them were pretty young so I’ll actually be one of the older players on the team, despite being one of the newest members,” Marwede said.

As a standout on nearly every team he has ever been on, the success for Marwede did not slow down during his first stop at the collegiate level. Marwede ranks 11th on the all-time scoring list for Alpena Community College and his play this past season earned him first team all-Conference, all-Region and all-State honors.

During his two years as a Lumberjack, Marwede poured in 885 career points while averaging nearly 18 points per game and ripping down just over 10 rebounds per contest, while shooting above 43 percent from the field and 35 percent from long range.

“When he first came in as a freshman you could see right away the talent that he had. He is a good ball player and he could have went somewhere big coming out of high school, but I think staying in Alpena really gave him a chance to really see how the competition is and he earned the respect from everyone in this league over the two years. It was an honor to coach this young man and everything is going to go well for him,” ACC assistant coach Bobby Allen said.

Marwede will join a Blue Knights squad that struggled last year, going just 2-26 overall. Urbana plays in the Mountain East Conference where they played three top 25 ranked teams, while scheduling two Division I schools in Duquesne and Bowling Green this past season.

Marwede is excited and looking forward to the challenges to continue competing against top competition at a high level next season.

“As I visited Urbana I noticed that the level of play was clearly a lot higher than what I played in for the last two seasons. I got a chance to play with the team and I knew that the guys on the other teams have just as much skill and at times it was hard to compete with them because everyone was a lot bigger and quicker. I have a lot of work to do, but eventually I hope to earn my playing time and hope coach notices my hard work and we can improve from a year ago,” Marwede said.

Competing at Urbana will be a special time for Marwede as he will play under third year head coach Rob Summers who was a former Division I player at Penn State from 2002-2004, before transferring to West Virginia in 2005 where he spent the rest of his career playing for current University of Michigan coach John Beilein.

“We think that Andy brings a scoring mentality as well as a good IQ to the program. He has room for growth but we expect him to provide an immediate uplift to our program. His ability to shoot the ball and his feel for the game. He understands angles and uses his strengths to cover his weaknesses. He’s an extremely intelligent player. We are excited to have Andy as part of our Urbana Family and we look forward to watching him develop as a basketball player and ,more importantly, a young man over the next couple of years,” Summers said.

Off the court Marwede will be getting his bachelors degree in Sports Management and will be getting his associates degree in Business Administration.

Marwede has displayed everything it takes to be successful on and off the court throughout his career as a student-athlete. The next journey will be something new to him, but it is safe to assume that the end result may remain the same.

“It’s going to be something different to play that first game without Alpena on my jersey. I’m just happy to know where I’m going next year and to have a final point for me next season because this is the last stop. Everything I’ve worked for is going to end here and it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Marwede said.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.