ADRIAN — The fall sports season is now in the rearview mirror for Adrian Public Schools and there were several successes and accomplishments taken away from the season by Adrian’s student-athletes.
With 221 student-athletes engaged in fall sports this year, the participation numbers in athletics at APS continue to hold strong and remain steady, Athletic Director Chad O’Brien recently informed the Adrian Board of Education.
The Maples capped off the fall by achieving two Southeastern Conference-White Division coaches of the year, two Lenawee County individual champions, multiple SEC student-athletes and multiple all-state student-athletes among other accolades.
Moving into the winter season of athletics, Adrian is projecting to have as many as 275 students taking part in district-offered sports, O’Brien said.
Boys’ basketball, wrestling and powerlifting all got underway Nov. 13. Gymnastics and bowling started during the first full week of November. Girls’ basketball and boys swimming both started their practices last week.
Feeding into the fall and winter participation numbers is the continued success of APS’ recreation sports programming. The recreation numbers are “drastically better than what they have been,” O’Brien said during the Adrian school board’s Nov. 13 meeting.
Last year, flag football, for example, was at 50 kids and this year the program added 22 kids, which “over one year is a great thing,” he said. Tackle football, as another example, was at 36 kids and now is at 49.
Recreation volleyball for third and fourth grade students, and for fifth and sixth grade students played host for all but two events this fall. Eight volleyball courts for matches during those tournaments were utilized, O’Brien said, which consisted of four courts at Adrian High School and four courts at Springbrook Middle School.
“The rec numbers are really good which is what’s feeding the rest of these programs,” he said. “We have a lot of people trying out for volleyball, basketball and things like that because they have an opportunity to play here.”
Here is a breakdown of the highlights of the fall sports season as presented by O’Brien:
- Seventy-one students participated in football this fall, which is about 20 more than last year. That is a progression O’Brien expects to see continue, he said. It also was the second consecutive year in which the high school football team earned a bid into the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) state playoffs.
- The boys’ soccer team took first place at the Maple Invite and ended the year with multiple SEC honors. It is expected that longtime soccer coach Ted Hanosh will step away from coaching and will not return for the 2024 season. “That is a major hire that we will have to make within the department,” O’Brien said. “It’s been 33 years since we have needed to hire a soccer coach.”
- Cross country numbers are holding steady for both the boys’ and girls’ teams. The top six runners score for the team in cross country. The boys’ team won the regional and the girls’ team was regional runner-up by one point. Both teams placed at the state meet for the second consecutive year and both teams achieved academic-all state status.
- Girls’ swimming, with 21 participants, continued its season into the weekend of Nov. 18 during the state tournament at Oakland University. Multiple swimming records were broken by this year’s team, O’Brien said, which also garnered 19 total all-SEC swimmers and seven swimmers who qualified for the state meet.
- Sideline cheer, which doesn’t compete in matches or jamborees like competitive cheering, had 19 athletes, which is more than last year, O’Brien said. “The girls really enjoyed it,” he said. “They are very organized and had a lot of compliments this year because of the organization of it.”
- Fourteen students participated in boys’ tennis this fall, which O’Brien said is becoming a solid program at Adrian. AHS tennis matches are held on the campus of Adrian College. Todd Barrus was in his first year as coach of the Maples tennis team.
- Thirteen golfers were on the girls’ golf team who finished as runners-up to Pinckney in the league standings. Adrian had an individual county champion golfer, the individual county runner-up champion golfer and the county team championship. It also was the first time in at least 10 years, O’Brien said, the girls’ golf team qualified for the state meet.
- Equestrian is still fairly new to Adrian but doubled its participation from one participant to two this year. That jump in numbers allowed Adrian to participate in equestrian team activities. The team won the district and the regional.
- Volleyball, across the board, is the most concerning of the fall sports to O’Brien because of the declining numbers. There were nine athletes on the freshmen team, seven on the junior varsity and nine on the varsity team this year. Still, the recreation program continues to produce quite a few volleyball athletes, he said. Varsity volleyball earned four first-team all-SEC players, one honorable mention player and an all-state athlete. The volleyball team advanced in the postseason to the district finals and ended the campaign with a 30-15-4 record. The team’s overall GPA was 3.92, which allowed them to earn academic all-state status.
The academic highlights, which O’Brien provided throughout his fall sports recap, were lauded by the school board, especially President Beth Ferguson, who said it’s important for student-athletes to remember that school studies and athletics both require lots of work, attention and dedication.
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“To hear that we have some teams with a 3.92 (academic GPA) that’s incredible,” she said.
“Our kids are going to meet the standard. They are going to do what they need to do in order to play and participate,” O’Brien said.
— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: twitter.com/LenaweeHeineman.
