McKelvey Fills Record-Setting Kicking Role with Lenawee Christian Football
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
October 11, 2022
ADRIAN – A couple of years ago it would have been easy to image Brady McKelvey scoring a last-second shot for Adrian Lenawee Christian to win a basketball game or for him to find the back of the net with a game-winning goal in soccer.
But fast forward to today and McKelvey might be more likely to kick a game-winning field goal for the No. 2-ranked Cougars 8-player football team.
“I watched football of course, but I never played it until last year,” McKelvey said. “It’s interesting. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m glad Coach (Bill) Wilharms asked us to try out.”
McKelvey is a two-sport athlete in the fall, playing for both the Lenawee Christian soccer and football teams. He’s played on MHSAA championship teams in both sports. Last week McKelvey reached rare territory when he kicked his 100th career extra point – the state record for 8-player football.
“We were never big football players,” McKelvey said, referring to him and his brother, Jacob, now a student at the University of Michigan. “We just always had a soccer ball in our hands.”
Wilharms is the strength and conditioning coach and varsity football coach at Lenawee Christian, which has grown into an 8-player powerhouse, winning Division 1 championships in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Brady and Jacob McKelvey were working out at the LCS facilities two springs ago when Wilharms asked if they wanted to try out kicking for the football team.
“I always wondered what it would be like to kick a football,” Brady McKelvey said. “I’ve always wanted to, but never had the opportunity. We were excited to try it out.”
Both came out for the team last season and were coached by Casey Opsal, a former Hudson kicker and now a Lenawee County sheriff’s deputy who is one of Wilharms’ assistants. With Opsal’s guidance, Jacob and Brady blossomed into outstanding kickers.
“He’s been the person who has taught me everything I know about it,” McKelvey said. “He helped me improve a lot.”
McKelvey has never attended a football camp or had a lesson in kicking a football from anyone outside of the LCS staff. Yet, his statistics are nothing short of amazing.
Last season, McKelvey had a string of 52 consecutive extra points at one point and finished the season making 59-of-61 attempts. He has a current streak of 23 straight makes heading into this week’s game and is 44-for-45 overall this year. In two seasons, that makes him 103-for-106. He kicked his first field goal earlier this season, giving him 106 career kicking points.
Twice in his career he’s kicked 10 extra points in a game. This year he’s hit at least eight PATs four straight weeks. He also averages about 45 yards per kickoff.
Wilharms said he’s happy McKelvey decided to try his leg at football and said the senior is still learning nuances of football, such as where to place the ball on kickoffs.
“He is a good athlete,” Wilharms said. “His PATs are consistent. We are definitely glad to have him on the team.”
Brady and Jacob shared duties last season, although by the end of the season Jacob was kicking off and Brady was handling the bulk of the extra points.
“At first, one of us would go out and kick and the next time the other one would go out there,” McKelvey said. “Toward the end of the season, I was better at extra points, and he was better at kicking off. It is cool to be on a team that scores a lot because you get to kick a lot.”
LCS has no trouble scoring. The Cougars are 6-1 and average 49.8 points per game.
Soccer continues to be McKelvey’s favorite sport. The Cougars are having a solid season on the pitch as well, and he is a big part of that team’s success too.
“I still love soccer,” McKelvey said.
Cougars soccer coach Nathan Sharpe said McKelvey is a team leader. He has three goals and three assists this fall. “He’s a captain and a key player on our team,” Sharpe said.
McKelvey said kicking the ball in soccer and kicking the football are very different things requiring different technique.
“It’s surprisingly different,” he said. “A soccer ball is a lot bigger. You have more room to hit it. You want to lean over and try and keep it toward the ground. A football you have to make a much different type of contact because you want to get it up into the air.
“The first time I kicked a football with no coaching, it was interesting. I had to try and completely switch how I was kicking.”
He’s learned the technique so much that this winter he is considering not playing basketball so he can go to football kicking camps. He’s hoping to become good enough to try out or walk-on to a football team in college.
“I didn’t really expect to be as consistent as I have been,” he said. “You watch college kickers, and even they miss sometimes. I work at it as much as I can. With soccer games, there are times I cannot go to football practice, but I try and get out there as much as I can.
“I think it would be awesome to kick in college,” he added. “I plan on going to some camps this winter. If I’m able to walk-on somewhere, that would be fine with me.”
Besides soccer, the McKelveys have a basketball background as well. Their dad Scott has coached boys and girls basketball in Lenawee County for years. He recently was hired as the boys varsity coach at Blissfield. The boys grew up being managers and hanging around the teams that Scott coached.
McKelvey is setting the bar high in the 8-player football record book. LCS still has two regular-season games remaining and is considered among the favorites to make a long postseason run – meaning he could push that extra point number a lot higher.
“I’m very happy I tried out for the team,” he said. “Being part of it is a lot of fun. The guys on the team have always treated me as part of the team. I really like being on the team. All the success we have makes it so much fun.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Brett McKelvey prepares to kick off during a game this season. (Middle) McKelvey, with father Scott McKelvey and mother Melissa Dempsey. (Photos courtesy of Jeff Jameson/Lenawee Christian.)
Already Climbing State's Career Goals List, Juneau Focused on Leading Team's Rise
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
August 29, 2025
With every goal this season, Harbor Springs junior Henry Juneau will continue his climb up the MHSAA all-time career scoring list.
With 86 goals and 38 assists entering this season, the two-time all-stater had already qualified for the career points list. He has 12 goals already this fall, moving him onto the all-time career goals list as well.
Yet, Juneau would consider trading those spots for Harbor securing a spot in the MHSAA Division 4 Semifinals this fall. Throw in a conference championship, and it’s a done deal.
“I want to win the conference — that's one of the main things that we haven't won yet up here in Northern Michigan that we can accomplish,” he said. “It's been a lot of fun, and I guess over the past two years, we've just really seen it turn around — but we haven’t won the Regional championship.”
The Rams are off to a 3-0 start in the Northern Shores Conference. To win a conference title, the Rams will have to go through Elk Rapids, which has dominated during the league’s existence. Harbor Springs play host to the Elks in their next contest and also will travel to Elk Rapids on Sept. 25.
Juneau owns Harbor Springs’ school records for goals in a single game (9) and season (48). He led the Rams to District championships both of his first two years.
Winning a Regional title is more important to Juneau than breaking school and state records for finding the net. The state goals record sits at 201.
“They're not as significant to me, at least this year,” Juneau said. “I'd still love to break it and make the number higher and higher.”
Goals have been a little harder to come by so far this season for Juneau as the Rams have battled some highly-ranked and bigger schools. Juneau is also better known by Rams’ opponents, drawing some double and triple teams.
Earning wins also has been more challenging. The Rams – ranked No. 14 in Division 4 – are off to a 4-6 overall start, although the win-loss record is not a concern to Juneau or his fifth-year coach, Jeff Suffolk.
“We played some behemoths – every team was ranked,” Suffolk said of the Boyne Mountain Invitational the Rams hosted to start the season, during which they defeated Division 3 No. 12 Grass Lake but lost to Division 2 No. 3 Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central, No. 9 Muskegon Reeths-Puffer, top-ranked Warren De La Salle Collegiate, Division 3 top-ranked Detroit Country Day and No. 3 Pontiac Notre Dame Prep.
“It gave our boys a chance to play against some really high-level teams and push their limits early.”
Pushing limits has been one of Suffolk’s strategies since taking over the program.
“We haven't won a conference since 2017, and that's one of our team goals,” he acknowledged. “We've tried to push our limits a little bit further. We're building upon some serious momentum we've had the last couple of years, and we have our eye on making a deeper run come playoff time this year.”
The Rams last advanced to the MHSAA Semifinals in 2002, falling 3-2 to the eventual Division 4 champion Hudsonville Freedom Baptist. Harbor Springs’ last conference title was achieved in the Lake Michigan Conference, which was dominated by Elk Rapids and is no longer in existence. Most of the same teams from that conference now belong to the Northern Shores League.
The Rams, in the midst of playing home and away games in the 10-team conference, are already looking ahead to the prospects or a third-straight District championship. The other teams in that bracket are Burt Lake Northern Michigan Christian, Charlevoix, Harbor Light Christian, Mackinaw Island and Cooks Big Bay de Noc.
Regional play is also something on which the Rams already have set their sights. Last year’s Division 4 champion Muskegon Western Michigan Christian knocked out the Rams last year and could be an opponent again this fall. Leland, which topped Harbor Springs in a Regional Final two years ago, could also be a Regional foe again.
There are two Harbor Springs players named Juneau. Henry’s younger brother, Cliff, is a freshman this year. The brothers are already teaming up to be something special.
“Henry’s a lethal goal scorer and he has a great supporting cast, including his little brother,” Suffolk proclaimed. “Watching those two work together is really cool, and you can kind of see the future.”
Despite a huge size difference compared to his older brother, the younger Juneau is already gaining attention.
“Cliff comes up to Henry's shoulders right now,” Suffolk pointed out. “But he's trying all the same things, and he's finding a lot of success. He's already a critical part of our team.”
Henry Juneau has become a role model for his little brother and pretty much everyone in the Rams’ small community, Suffolk points out. The Juneaus live across the street from their coach, and Henry is the best friend of the coach’s son, eighth-grader Jack Suffolk.
“Henry is someone the kids can really look up to as a good role model,” Suffolk said. “They see his work ethic, and they see him putting in year-round work on his craft.”
Both Suffolk and Henry Juneau point to their special coach-player relationship as a key to the Rams’ continued success.
“I want excellence out of these kids, and I know we're never going to get perfection,” Suffolk said. “I demand excellence and as unstoppable as Henry is, we still have tough conversations.”
Juneau carries great appreciation for his coach’s demands.
“We have a great relationship, and it's fun to work with him every day through the season,” he said. “But, yes, he has a high standard and it's what pushes me to be better and our whole team to be better. And if we didn't have it, we wouldn't be where we are right now.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Harbor Springs’ Henry Juneau (11) works to get control of the ball in front of the net. (Middle) Juneau stands among his teammates during a game. (Photos by Rob DeForge/RD Sports Photo.)