Finalists Announced for 2025-26 MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Awards
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 20, 2026
The 120 finalists for the Michigan High School Athletic Association's Scholar-Athlete Awards for the 2025-26 school year, presented by Farm Bureau Insurance, have been announced.
The program, in its 37th year, has recognized student-athletes since the 1989-90 school year and again this winter will honor 32 individuals from MHSAA member schools who participate in at least one sport in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament.
Farm Bureau Insurance underwrites the Scholar-Athlete Awards and will present a $2,000 scholarship to each recipient. Since the beginning of the program, 991 scholarships have been awarded.
Scholarships will be presented proportionately by school classification, with 12 scholarships to be awarded to Class A student-athletes, six female and six male; eight scholarships awarded to Class B student-athletes, four female and four male; six scholarships awarded to Class C student-athletes, three female and three male; and four scholarships awarded to Class D student-athletes, two female and two male. In addition, two scholarships will be awarded at-large to minority recipients, regardless of school size.
Every MHSAA member high school could submit as many applications as there are scholarships available in its classification and could have more than one finalist. This year, 95 schools have a finalist, with Birmingham Groves and Flint Powers Catholic atop the list with three apiece. Twenty-one schools have two finalists: Ann Arbor Greenhills, Bay City Central, Birch Run, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Corunna, Detroit Country Day, Frankenmuth, Grand Ledge, Holland, Holland West Ottawa, Midland Dow, Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart, Negaunee, Northville, Okemos, Plymouth, Royal Oak, White Lake Lakeland and Yale.
Multiple-sport participation remains the norm among applicants. The average sport participation rate of the finalists is 3.02, up from 2.88 a year ago. There also are 82 three-plus sport participants in the finalists field, up from 75 in 2024-25, and all 31 sports in which the MHSAA sponsors postseason tournaments are represented — including field hockey and boys volleyball, which joined the MHSAA's championship lineup this school year for the first time.
Of 426 schools which submitted applicants, 20 submitted the maximum allowed. This year, 1,438 applications were received. All applicants will be presented with certificates commemorating their achievement. Additional Scholar-Athlete Award information, including a complete list of scholarship nominees, can be found on the Scholar-Athlete Award page.
The applications were judged by a 72-member committee of coaches, counselors, faculty members, administrators and board members from MHSAA member schools. Selection of the 32 scholarship recipients will take place in early February. Class C and D scholarship recipients will be announced Feb. 3, Class B scholarship recipients will be announced Feb. 10 and Class A scholarship recipients will be announced Feb. 17. All announcements will be made on the MHSAA Website.
To be eligible for the award, students must have a cumulative grade-point average of 3.50 (on a 4.0 scale) and previously have won a varsity letter in at least one sport in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament. Students also were asked to respond to a series of short essay questions and submit two letters of recommendation and a 500-word essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan was founded in 1949 by Michigan farmers who wanted an insurance company that worked as hard as they did. Those values still guide the company today and are a big reason why it is known as Michigan’s Insurance Company, dedicated to protecting the farms, families, and businesses of this great state. Farm Bureau Insurance agents across Michigan provide a full range of insurance services — life, home, auto, farm, business, retirement, Lake Estate®, and more — protecting nearly 500,000 Michigan policyholders.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.
2025-26 Scholar-Athlete Award Finalists
GIRLS CLASS A
Reese Beauleaux, Adrian
Asia Shi, Ann Arbor Huron
Lilamae Frank, Battle Creek Lakeview
Brynn Corrion, Bay City Central
Bella Matthews, Bay City Central
Lydia Binelli, Berkley
Jacey Roy, Birmingham Groves
Julia Yoder, Birmingham Groves
Ella Griffin, Bloomfield Hills
Sydney Behnke, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood
Justine Casey, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood
Laurin M. Edwards, Detroit Cass Tech
Grace Kim, Farmington Hills Mercy
Gracelynn Olson, Fruitport
Jade Queen, Grand Ledge
Maggie Telgenhof, Holland
Maggie Rothstein, Holland West Ottawa
Mattie Thompson, Okemos
Veda Keshavamurthy, Plymouth
Ava Mac Donald, Rochester Adams
Jillian Hayes, Saline
Arabella Glass, Waterford Kettering
Anna Linen, White Lake Lakeland
Meredith Peterson, White Lake Lakeland
BOYS CLASS A
Ari Blank, Birmingham Groves
Caleb Garrett, Birmingham Seaholm
Sajan Doshi, Bloomfield Hills
Kazutaka Suzuki, Canton
Ryan Dye, Detroit Catholic Central
Carson Soltis, DeWitt
Trevor Griffith, Flint Kearsley
Ian Deters, Grand Ledge
Eli Macauley, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern
Andrew Legg, Holland
Drew Rothstein, Holland West Ottawa
Wesley Rogers, Mason
Marcel Stork, Mattawan
Eamon Murray, Midland
Matthew Huang, Midland Dow
Matthew McGaugh, Midland Dow
Benjamin Hu, Northville
Amogh Mavatoor, Northville
Ian Morgan, Okemos
Sami Anwar, Plymouth
Omar Elghawy, Portage Northern
Luke Desnoyer, Royal Oak
Nicholas Maeso, Royal Oak
Owen Wohlfert, Traverse City West
GIRLS CLASS B
Sophia Hazzi, Ann Arbor Greenhills
Sydney Fox, Birch Run
Avery Pagel, Birch Run
Presley Chamberlain, Cheboygan
Madison Dennis, Durand
Natalie Foltz, Frankenmuth
Julia Noureddine, Grosse Ile
Phoebe Elder, Haslett
Brayley West, Lake Fenton
Aubrey Tarkiewicz, Marshall
Clare O'Donnell, Negaunee
Liliana Saunders, Negaunee
Lilly Thelen, Portland
Maya Grossman, Vicksburg
Ava Lassey, Wixom St. Catherine
Kendall Hollon, Yale
BOYS CLASS B
Parth Ashok, Ann Arbor Greenhills
Cole Haist, Big Rapids
Miles Dell, Chelsea
Nolan Carr, Corunna
Joel DeLorge, Corunna
Hugh Aaron, Detroit Country Day
Micah Zacks, Detroit Country Day
Möbius Stubblefield, Edwardsburg
Caleb Carignan, Flint Powers Catholic
Bryce Gross, Flint Powers Catholic
Logan Johnson, Flint Powers Catholic
Caden Sommerfield, Frankenmuth
Dylan Becksvoort, Holland Christian
Jaxxon Thelen, Ionia
Tucker Cole, Tecumseh
Jackson Kohler, Yale
GIRLS CLASS C
Anna Poppema, Bath
Hope Miller, Blissfield
Brynne Schulte, Elk Rapids
Addyson Rhodes, Grandville Calvin Christian
Molly Soper, Hanover-Horton
Izabella Latuszek, Laingsburg
Maya Carlson, Manistique
Ashley Carlson, Norway
Luella Whipkey, Oscoda
Emma Winans, Perry
Lillian Kwiatkowski, Rudyard
Irelynn Pachulski, Saranac
BOYS CLASS C
Ethan Stine, Bridgman
Joe Gaffney, Charlevoix
Gavin Comero, Ishpeming Westwood
Sean Siems, Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep
Eli Smith, LeRoy Pine River
Grason Weber, Leslie
Sean Dammann, New Lothrop
Logan Slimko, North Muskegon
Drew Ruddy, Ottawa Lake Whiteford
Luke Paxton, Pewamo-Westphalia
Ryan Kowalczyk, Pinconning
Amos Miller, Saginaw Arts & Sciences Academy
GIRLS CLASS D
Audrey Stone, Bessemer
Madison Karakashian, Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart
Alexa Ross, Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart
Caila Fitchett, Dryden
Lorna Wiesen, Leland
Isabel Rookard, Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart
Hope Woolman, Sterling Heights Parkway Christian
Emily DelFavero, Wakefield-Marenisco
BOYS CLASS D
Zyan Breznik, Adrian Lenawee Christian
Ian Flanagan, Deckerville
Brady Jungwirth, Felch North Dickinson
David Wahl, Gaylord St Mary
Connor Hill, Hillsdale Academy
Noah Zeien, Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart
Jack Nelson, Ontonagon
Louis Kowalsky, West Bloomfield FJA
From the Director: Back to School
August 7, 2020
By Mark Uyl
MHSAA Executive Director
Since March 12, our world has been anything but normal. These times have tested most everything in life, and as summer turns toward fall, we find ourselves still with far more questions than answers. It has been said that an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
Let me start with these abnormal times. I’ve had many conversations with administrators over the past month about the start of school and school sports. The one constant theme is these are anything but normal times. Many of these conversations have moved to the issue of schools starting the academic year virtually while considering whether or not to offer school sports opportunities this fall. Let me share the things that have been part of almost all conversations on this topic.
The loudest message I hear is kids are going to be playing sports this fall someplace. Period. If we believe that kids are going to take the fall off if school sports aren’t offered, we haven’t been paying much attention since May. Since that time, athletic activity has taken place in the club, travel, AAU and non-school space nearly every day. From first-hand experience, many of these events have implemented ZERO of the safety standards and protocols that businesses and schools have adopted for their plans of return. The non-school world generally has plowed ahead this summer with few-to-no rules, regulations, enforcement, oversight and accountability to anyone. If kids are going to be playing sports, our member schools are telling us that activity needs to be in the safest environment possible – which is with professional educators and trained coaches in our school sports world.
Schools are quick to point out that kids have been conditioning and training with school coaches in school-sponsored workouts most of the summer. We believe that the absence of virus outbreaks among our 749 high schools’ summer activities, involving thousands of kids, has been because schools have been following the return-to-activity plans. Districts have told us they can continue doing what they’ve been doing safely since June by following all COVID guidance and regulations we have put in place with government’s leadership and partnership.
Schools starting the year virtually are telling us they will use the lessons learned from the start of sports for when students return to campus later in the fall. School administrators have shared this view privately as this has become a highly-charged topic among various groups within our school communities. Sports allow schools to bring students back to campus in small, consistent and defined groups with the same adults working with those students each day. In school sports, there is little mixing of students from one sport with those students in another – making it much easier to monitor, track and trace kids when needed than if all students were in the buildings, hallways and classrooms all day. We hear from administrators that valuable lessons can be learned with athletics in August and September for a successful school start-up with students back on campus in October.
All of us share the fundamental belief that we must protect the health and safety of individuals first. This doesn’t include only COVID prevention measures, but also the mental health of teenage students and adults as well. In districts that are starting the school year online, they see athletics being the one shred of normalcy students, and staff members who choose to coach, will have during the fall. It’s a chance to safely interact with peers and get needed physical activity that hasn’t been happening for some kids since March. Health and safety has to include all facets of the individual, and more research is being shared each day about how mental health is becoming a critical issue. For many at-risk kids, sports is the one motivating factor to keep them in school and progressing toward graduation. Given the challenges of all online education for these at-risk kids, sports and the daily routine they bring perhaps would be more important for this group of students than ever before.
With no school sports, the affluent communities and families can navigate online learning during the day and then afford the non-school athletic opportunities that kids and families in less-affluent areas simply cannot. In many communities, school sports can provide opportunities and open doors that would not appear if kids become priced-out from participating and competing.
The past five months have been the most abnormal in a century. School sports being the one pathway back to school for students in our state – the one norm for this fall – run by professional educators who put kids first, would be an incredible boost to the physical and mental health of all of us. We believe that school sports can be done safely and smartly, and the MHSAA has developed plans that do just that. While the optics of sports taking place while waiting for in-person education is not what any of us prefer, we believe we must react to these abnormal times by thinking differently and looking at these unique times through a unique lens.
Trying to find one normal for our kids in these abnormal school days might just be the best thing we can do.