Historic wins, record-breaking performances, viral moments, celebrity coaches and unforgettable players and teams defined 2025 from a high school sports perspective.
Read on for our look at the top 20 high school sports stories of 2025.
Melissa destroyed the national home run record on the way to state and national titles last spring. The Cardinals hammered 122 round-trippers while going 38-1. (PHOTO: Michael Horbovetz)
After leading two programs to the apex of high school basketball,
Montverde Academy (Montverde, Fla.) head coach Kevin Boyle announced in March that he was leaving to take a similar job at
SPIRE Academy (Geneva, Ohio). He was a five-time state champion in New Jersey before turning Montverde into a basketball juggernaut that was named national champion seven times by MaxPreps.
READ MOREBryce James wins state title with LeBron sitting courtsideThe King was front and center as
Bryce James helped
Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth, Calif.) win a Division 1 title in March. The Arizona commit contributed in the victory as the Trailblazers won their fourth state crown. LeBron celebrated with his son on court following the victory as the throng of fans in attendance watched the viral moment.
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Buford wins national title
After going 15-0 and winning the Class AAAAAA state championship in Georgia,
Buford has been crowned the 2025 MaxPreps National Champion. The Wolves capped their perfect season with a 28-21 win over then-No. 1
Carrollton in the title game. In a wild football season that saw six teams spend time at the No. 1 spot in the MaxPreps Top 25, the Wolves chugged their way to the top spot in the season's final game and broke a four-year run by California schools as the nation's No. 1 team.
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Peat plays through broken hand to win titleIt was a true Willis Reed moment as
Koa Peat, one of the nation's top senior high school basketball prospects, led
Perry (Gilbert) to its fourth straight Arizona title playing with a broken right hand. The University of Arizona commit missed a quarterfinal game but returned for the semis and scored 20, including several dunks, in the championship.
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Small-school standouts Ash, McLaughlin make national headlines
Kaegan Ash of
Mt. Enterprise broke a 72-year-old Texas rushing record and
Myles McLaughlin of
Knox (Ind.) shattered the single-season national record for rushing yards (4,846) and rushing
touchdowns (71). McLaughlin finished his career as the third all-time leading rusher with
11,839 yards only trailing Kelvin Taylor (12,063) and Derrick Henry
(12,124). He is one of five players in high school football history to
rush for over 11,000 yards and also ranks sixth all-time with 174
rushing touchdowns. Ash is fourth on the all-time yards list with 11,377 and broke the previous Texas mark of 11,232 set by Ken Hall of Sugar Land from 1950-53.
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Former NFL player takes over program with historic losing streak
Sammie Coates, a former NFL receiver, was hired in the spring as the new football coach at
Columbia (Huntsville, Ala.), a program hoping to snap what was then thought to be the longest
losing streak in high school football history at 91 games.
Columbia went 0-10 in 2025 and begins the 2026 season with 101 straight losses. The Eagles haven't won since 2015.
READ MORE Football team that hasn't won this century
Coming into the 2025 football season, it was thought that Columbia's 91-game losing streak was the nation's longest. However, research by Kevin Askeland of MaxPreps found
Red Lake (Minn.) was on the verge of its 150th straight loss in October. The real story at Red Lake, however, wasn't as much the streak as the perseverance and determination of coach Nolan Desjarlait to keep a Native American community playing through adversity.
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Byron Nelson goes back-to-back
McKnight hits milestone basketball winMater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) basketball head coach Gary McKnight ended 2024 by passing legendary former
DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) coach Morgan Wootten for second place on the career wins list. He started the 2025-26 season with his his 1,300th career victory and trails only Robert Hughes of
Terrell (Texas) and
Dunbar (Fort Worth, Texas)
as the only coaches to reach the lofty milestone. McKnight has led the program to 11 state championships, 16 regional titles, 24 section titles and 40 league championships in 42 years.
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Bridgewater leaves Northwestern, returns to NFL
Northwestern (Miami, Fla.) suspended head coach and former NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater in August after the FHSAA opened an investigation into allegations he solicited reimbursement for expenses he incurred while coaching the Bulls to their first state title in 2024. He left the Northwestern program and signed a one-year deal with Tampa Bay as Baker Mayfield's backup. The Buccaneers are playing Carolina on Sunday with a playoff berth on the line.
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Propst wins state football title in Alabama
Rush Propst won his eighth football state championship as a coach in December, leading
Coosa Christian (Gadsden) to Alabama's Class 2A title with a 29-22 victory over
Lanett. Propst won five titles at
Hoover (Ala.) and another two at
Colquitt County (Norman Park, Ga.). Controversy followed at most of those stops, including one
season at
Valdosta (Ga.). The coach is looking for new opportunities after Coosa Christian reinstated coach Mark O'Bryant, who had been suspended prior to the start of the season.
READ MORESam and Charlie Woods, the two children of golf great Tiger Woods, each won state titles in Florida. Sam became a Florida state soccer champion after she and her Benjamin (Palm Beach Gardens) teammates won the Class 2A title. Tiger was in the stands for the championship match. Brother Charlie won his second team golf title as the Buccaneers won the Class 2A title in his junior season after grabbing the title in his freshman year.
READ MORE141 wins in a rowIncarnate Word Academy (St. Louis, Mo.) girls basketball needed eight wins entering the 2024-25 season to break the national consecutive wins record. The Red Knights won their 139th straight game in January but would see that streak end two weeks later at 141. IWA rebounded to win a state championship for the eighth consecutive year and finish 27-2.
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Santa Margarita ends Bosco/Mater Dei title monopoly
First-year head coach Carson Palmer led Santa Margarita to the California Open Division state football title, breaking a streak of eight seasons where
Mater Dei (Santa Ana) or
St. John Bosco (Bellflower) hoisted the trophy. The Eagles finished No. 4 nationally and ran through three ranked opponents en route to the title. The Eagles allowed just over 12 points per game on defense and were led by California Player of the Year Trent Mosley.
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Etiwanda three-peatsPowered by MaxPreps All-Americans
Aliyahna Morris and
Grace Knox, the
Etiwanda girls
basketball program hit the trifecta with its third straight California
Open Division title, the first in the 11-year history of the highest
classification. The Eagles struggled early in the season but hit their
stride late to take down
Archbishop Mitty (San Jose)
for the third straight time.
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Corona baseball produces three first-roundersCorona (Calif.)
became the first high school baseball team to have two players selected
in the top 10 of the same MLB Draft and the only squad with three
first-round picks.
Seth Hernandez, a powerful right-handed pitcher with a 0.39 ERA in 2025, was taken with the top pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Billy Carlson was selected with the 10th pick by the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers drafted
Brady Ebel 32nd overall.
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California senior scores 102 points
Basketball commit breaks state soccer goal record
Melissa breaks home run recordTexas powerhouse
Melissa broke the high school softball national record for home runs in a season with 122 while going 38-1, winning the Conference 5A Division 1 state title and being crowned MaxPreps National Champion. Eleven different players contributed to the record led by Kennedy Bradley with 23.
READ MORETop-ranked senior basketball player transfers
Tyran Stokes, the No. 1 high school basketball player in the Class of 2026, left
Notre Dame (Sherman Oaks, Calif.) on the eve of the season after facing disciplinary issues and enrolled at
Rainier Beach (Seattle, Wash.). The
6-foot-7 forward earned first team MaxPreps Junior All-America honors
last season and led Notre Dame to an
appearance in the Open Division state semifinals. He even played football for the Knights in the fall.
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