By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

Lake Orion High School prides itself in the accomplishments of its students. One of the things Lake Orion has a reputation for is sending senior student-athletes on to play college sports.

On Feb. 13, 10 more LOHS students joined the hundreds of student-athletes before them and signed their letters of intent to continue their athletic careers at various colleges throughout the nation.

Lake Orion has been doing public signings for quite some time now in order to acknowledge the accomplishments of these hard working individuals.

“There’s only a small percentage of high school student-athletes that get to go on and play at the college level. Being recruited, going through that process is nerve-wracking, it’s hard, it seems great but it can be stressful. But when you get the opportunity to go on and commit, the one thing for the student-athletes – I want to remind you and challenge you as well – is you’re making a commitment and that commitment is a four-to-five year commitment, and I will tell you that probably nothing that you’ve done thus far is going to be more life-changing than what you’ll do over the next four-to-five years,” said LOHS Athletic Director Chris Bell.

“If you have a chance to play college athletics, the things that you’ll see, the people that you’ll meet, the things that you’ll do are life-changing. So don’t take this commitment lightly. Look at it as, ‘This is a great opportunity,’ and you’re going to come out the other end with some experiences that only a select few have that opportunity to do.”

The 10 student-athletes who signed their letters of intent are:

Track

Madison Eaton will be attending the University of Michigan.

Track / Cross Country

Allison Sherman will join both the track and cross country teams at the University of Detroit.

Football

Zach Foote will be attending Finlandia University. Hunter Chambers will play at Michigan Tech University. Chris Vernon signed to play at Siena Heights University. Braden Robinson will attend Hillsdale College. Sebastian Marku will head down to Florida to play for Ava Maria University.

Baseball

Josh Slayton will play for Bowling Green State University.

Soccer

Grace Cady with join the team at Lake Erie College.

Softball

Kim Sosnowski will attend Aquinas College.

Bell stressed the importance of keeping the lines between their families and coaches open.

“It’s okay to call mom and dad and say, ‘Hey, I’m frustrated. I’m fourth on the depth chart. I’m used to starting every game and playing every game.’ It’s called being patient. As well as your coaches. You have a great group of coaches that are here that help support you along the way. Feel free to call your coaches. They’ll always have encouraging words for you because they’ve been there and they’ve seen it as well,” said Bell.