Maple Valley News

09/13/2025

How big was the gap between the Lions and Reading on homecoming night at Maple Valley High School Friday? Just a couple of inches at the end of the first half would have made a big difference in what turned into a 28-7 win for the visiting Rangers in Big 8 Conference play.

Pushing to cut into a 12-7 Reading lead in the closing moments of the first half, the Lions quickly drove from their own 46-yard-line deep into Ranger territory. The Reading defense managed to haul down Lion senior quarterback Eli Wright just short of the goal-line as the final couple seconds ticked off the clock. The Lions had to burn a couple timeouts mostly due to substitution issues in the first half, and it burned them at that moment.

A couple Maple Valley football players were crowned the homecoming king and prince during halftime ceremonies, but after the half most of the highlights belonged to the Rangers.

Reading quarterback Carter Bassage hurt the Lions on both sides of the ball. He intercepted a pass from his safety spot and returned it 55 yards for a touchdown to end the Lions’ first drive of the second half. Senior running back Brayden Wright took a reverse 70 yards for a touchdown. The Rangers added a couple two-point conversions as well to make the final margin.

The Lions had a lead for a bit in the first half. Gray took a pitch 54 yards around the left side for a touchdown three and a half minutes into the game. Wright made plays on both sides of the ball like his QB counterpart. He recovered a Ranger fumble late in the first quarter and a few plays later connected with senior Jackson Burpee for a 23-yard touchdown pass.

Sophomore kicker Kelvin Davis booted the extra-point kick to put the Lions ahead 7-6 with 14.3 seconds to go in the opening quarter.

Reading followed with a 16-play drive that covered 80 yards over the first eight minutes of the second quarter. The drive concluded with a nine-yard Gray TD run as the Rangers moved in front 12-7

The Lions are now 0-3 on the season. Reading moved its record to 1-2 …

Read more in the Sept. 20 edition of the Maple Valley News …

09/13/2025

Seniors Tyrese Robinson-El and Addison Shank are crowned the 2025 Maple Valley High School homecoming king and queen during halftime of the Lions’ varsity football contest against Reading Friday. Juniors Teegen McDonald and Kaylee Williams were also honored as the homecoming prince and princess. This year’s champion of the homecoming week festivities is the freshman class.

09/09/2025

The Maple Valley varsity boys’ and girls’ cross country teams had five total medalists competing in the Kellogg Division races at Monday’s Coach B Invitational hosted by Thornapple Kellogg at Gun Lake.

08/11/2025

Sign up is rolling on for the best bargain in basketball - the annual Hastings Summerfest Jim Jensen Memorial 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament returns to Tyden Park Saturday, Aug. 23. The cost is just $25 for teams of three or four players.

The 2025 Jim Jensen Memorial 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament will be held Saturday, August 23, at Tyden Park in downtown Hastings as part of the annual Hastings Summerfest. The cost to participate is $25 per team, for teams of three or four participants. T-shirts will be passed out to the first 100 at....

06/04/2025

It’s a math problem for the freshmen to learn, and a good review for everybody else. Easier than Algebra II, but tougher than regular addition.

On the baseball field, mistakes multiply if you add them together. Don’t do it.

The Maple Valley varsity baseball team is on to the MHSAA Division 4 Regional Final Saturday, June 7, at Spring Arbor University after an early afternoon 4-2 victory over Big 8 Conference foe Concord in the regional semifinal at Addison High School Wednesday. The Lions manage to keep adding postseason wins together.

Senior Jakeb McDonald got the win allowing two runs, one earned, on five hits and one walk in four innings on the mound. He struck out four. Sophomore Teegen McDonald came on to start the fifth and shut out the Yellow Jackets over the final three innings. He walked one and struck out four.

The two walks by the McDonald brothers, the two aces who helped power the Lions to the state semifinals a year ago, were both to Concord’s number nine hitter, Landon Lynn. They each had just the one walk though. They didn’t multiply their problems.

The Lions led 4-1 through three innings. Jakeb’s walks of Lynn came sandwiched between a pair of Concord doubles that helped the Yellow Jackets to a run in the bottom of the fourth to get within 4-2.

Coach Bryan Carpenter swapped the McDonald brothers between shortstop and the pitching mound to start the fifth inning, and the first batter Teegen faced hit a ground ball bounding right at Jakeb who fired high to first for an error. The runner didn’t last long though. The next batter popped a little liner to the left side that Jakeb lept up and grabbed and then fired to first to pick off the runner who had strayed too far from the bag for a double play.

With the slate clean again, Teegen got a strikeout that could have been the end of the inning, but the pitch was so far wide that catcher Nolan Hoefler couldn’t get to it and the Concord runner raced to first. Hoefler didn’t try and force a throw. Before Teegen even threw a pitch to the next batter, he spun and rocketed a pick-off throw to first baseman Darren Carpenter who dropped down a tag for the out.

The bottom of the sixth was a clean inning for the Lion defense, and the bottom of the seventh started with Teegen allowing a lead-off walk to Lynn. This time it was second baseman James Coblentz making the play for the Lions, snagging a line drive and firing to first to catch another Yellow Jacket too far off the bag for a double play. Teegen struck out the next guy and that was the ball game.

Jakeb said this team is able not to compound their errors because the confidence they gained in last year’s postseason run and throughout this season. He said things really started coming together in the couple weeks leading up to the start of the postseason for this young team.

Those three freshmen at the bottom of the Lion line-up really came up big Wednesday, and they needed to. Kaiden Meyers scored a run. Carpenter was 1-for-4 with two RBIs. Coblentz was 1-for-2 with a double, and he walked twice out of the number nine spot for the Lions too. Hoefler, a fourth freshman regularly in the starting line-up, bats lead-off for this Lion team.

Sophomore Bobby Bryson was 1-for-2 with a walk and a run scored for Maple Valley.

Maple Valley had just three hits against Concord pitchers Lynn, Nate Fritz and Jordan Medellion. The Lions’ top four hitters, Hoefler, Musser, Teegen McDonald and Jake McDonald were a combined 0-for-16 with three walks.

Lynn started and allowed three runs, two earned, on one hit, seven walks and two strike outs. He took the loos. Fritz got Concord through the next three innings allowing just one unearned run. Medellion came on for 1.2 scoreless innings of relief to finish the ballgame.

Concord had five hits, the doubles by Medellion and 12, and singles from Fritz, Dustin Hamilton and Lane Blossom …

Read more in this weekend’s edition of the Maple Valley News …

06/04/2025

A cold, wet coach for the bus ride home is a good sign. Maple Valley defeats Concord 4-2 in the MHSAA Division 4 Regional Semifinal at Addison High School Wednesday, with an early start to avoid any rainfall. Next up a regional final (and possible state quarterfinal) at Spring Arbor University Saturday.

05/31/2025

Maple Valley freshman Kelvin Nevins-Davis runs one of his fastest 110-meter high hurdles races yet (16.65 seconds) to finish 23rd in the semifinal heats at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Track and Field Finals Saturday.

He’s got the 300-meter hurdles ahead this afternoon at the Finals.

(Photo by Chris Robotham - Thanks Chris!)

05/30/2025

They smiled. They shouted. They shook hands with the Athens guys. They huddled right there on the infield next to their discarded gloves, and then the Lions promptly lined up along the first baseline.

It’s almost like they’d done this before (well, a few of them anyway.)

The Maple Valley varsity baseball team, a year after the program rolled all the way to the state semifinals, opened the 2025 postseason by shutting out Bellevue and Athens to win a MHSAA Division 4 District Championship for the second year in a row.

Senior Jakeb McDolanld pitched a complete game shut out in the Lions’ 7-0 district final win over Athens at Bellevue High School Friday.

Pitchers Teegen McDonald and James Coblentz each threw two perfect innings in a district semifinal win over Bellevue.

The Lions scored in five of the six innings that they stepped to the plate in the final with Athens. Noah Musser led the way offensively going 3-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored. Six other Lions recorded one hit apiece.

Jakeb McDonald struck out 13 Indians and gave up just one hit, a first inning single. He lost a little control late, but got out of a two-on, one-out jam in the top of the sixth with Coblentz starting a nifty 4-6-3 double play. The Lion second baseman shot the ball over to the shortstop Teegen at second who fired a laser over to Darren Carpenter at first.

The Lions go to Addison for their MHSAA Division 4 Regional Semifinal Wednesday, June 4 …

Read more in the June 7 edition of the Maple Valley News …

05/30/2025

Pitchers Teegen McDonald and James Coblentz each threw two perfect innings and the Maple Valleylley varsityty baseball team combined six hits with a number of walks, hit batters and a handful of errors by the young Bellevue team to open the MHSAA Division 4 District tournament at Bellevue High School with a 15-0 win Friday afternoon.

Athens beat Tekonsha 10-4 in the day’s first district semifinal match-up, and the Lions and Indians now square off for the district championship.

04/29/2025

Twice the Lions cut a two-goal Bronson lead in half, but they couldn’t quite find an equalizer in a 3-2 loss to the visiting Vikings in Big 8 Conference action Monday at Maple Valley High School.

Bronson scored on a breakaway midway through the first half and then got behind the Lion defensive line again in the opening minutes of the second half to take a 2-0 lead.

Senior exchange student Ines Sanchez broke in on the right side of the Viking box and converted on a one-on-one chance against the Viking keeper with 17:07 to go to finally get the Lions on the scoreboard.

Both teams put a free kick into the net in the final 15 minutes to finish the scoring. First Bronson found the net with 14:12 to play to go up 3-1. The Lions cut the lead back to one with Claire Seume shooting a low, hard free kick from just outside the Viking box that glanced off a Viking defender and into the goal.

The Lions fall to 1-4 in the Big 8 Conference with the loss. They will be at home again Thursday to take on Comstock and then face Big 8 leading Quincy next week, May 5. The Lions do get another shot at Bronson on the road May 12.

Lion head coach Richard Seume was already looking forward to making some adjustments for the next meeting with the Vikings as his girls met following Monday’s defeat. He is excited for his team to get in its first practice in a week on Tuesday afternoon.

There are some things to work on. He’d like to see his defensive line to mark up a bit better to prevent some of those breakaways the Vikings managed, and while the Lion offense worked the ball forward fairly well there is still some experience to gain in what to do in that final third of the offensive zone. The Lions were one or two touches away a number of times from getting the ball in the back of the net.

A couple of the Lions’ best scoring chances came early in the contest with Sanchez and fellow seniors Isabel Emerick and Grace Widenhofer moving the ball well together on the attack.

Senior Makenna Barnum-Suttles continues her transition from a center back to goalie. Slowed by an injury early on in the season, she moved back into the goal and coach Seume said she is performing as well as any keeper in the conference. The Bronson girls had a few more breakaway attempts than the ones they scored on, and Barnum-Suttles did a good job of coming off her line to deflect a few shots away or take the ball away before the Vikings could get a shot off …

Read more in next weekend’s edition of the Maple Valley News …

03/01/2025

The Maple Valley varsity boys’ basketball team found a way to slow down a Potterville team that hit ten three-pointers in the first half of its MHSAA Division 3 District Semifinal at Maple Valley High School Wednesday.

An answer never came against a talented Pewamo-Westphalia team in the district final Friday back at MVHS. The Pirates took a 76-38 win over the Lions in the district championship game.

The Pirates had 14 different players score and half of them hit at least one three-pointer. Grady Eklund hit five of his team’s 15 three-pointers and finished with a game-high 17 points to lead the Pirates. He had 14 of those points in the first half as the teams rolled through their benches in the second half.

Maple Valley had nine different guys score led by Teegen McDonald’s eight points. Kelvin Nevins-Davis buried a couple of corner threes and finished with seven points. The Lion team got six points each from Jake McDonald and Cam Murray.

While the Pirates shot the lights out, Lion head coach Ryan Nevins said the P-W team might be the best defensive team one of his squads has everer played against.

The Pirates have not lost a district ballgame since 2015, winning nine district championships since then …

Read more in next weekend’s edition of the Maple Valley News …

02/13/2025

Springport had 14 fewer points than in the first ballgame of 2025.

Maple Valley had 24 more.

That's progress.

The visiting Springport varsity girls' basketball team kept the Maple Valley girls winless in the Big 8 Conference so far this season by scoring a 63-37 win at Maple Valley High School Tuesday, but the final score showed big strides from when the two teams met in the first ballgame of 2025 back on Jan. 7.

Spanish exchange student Ines Sanchez led the Lions with 12 points and sophomore guard Aubree Roth put in 11 in the loss. The Lions haven't had a lot of nights this season with two girls in double figures, and everyone on the team is getting more confident with the basketball in their hands.

The Lions got six points from senior forward Taylor Casey and four from freshman center Abbigail Harvey …

Read more in this weekend’s edition of the Maple Valley News …