Mason Welsch hauls in the second of his two touchdown catches in last fall’s Division VI title win over Kirtland High School. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
In a highly competitive consideration regarding on-the-field and in-the-classroom achievement, Coldwater’s Mason Welsch and Minster’s Ava Stammen garner recognition as the MAC Scholar-Athlete Award Winners for 2025.
It’s always an anticipated announcement, the annual recipients of the annual MAC scholar-athlete award winners from Press Pros and sponsors of the Midwest Athletic Conference…because of the competitive tradition of the conference and 150 OHSAA state team titles in sports.
And 2025 is no exception as Coldwater’s Mason Welsch and Minster’s Ava Stammen have been selected as the recipients of the 2025 Stan Wilker Memorial annual scholarship award for male and female athletes. In a field of nearly 75 applications, Welsch and Stammen were the final two standing after consideration of athletic and scholastic achievement and personal essay statement.
Knapke Kitchens and Baths sponsors University of Dayton sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
Mason Welsch is a three-sport participant at Coldwater – football, basketball, and baseball – where he’s notably achieved all-state recognition in football as a member of the 2024 Division V championship team, playing receiver and running back on offense and defensive back on defense.
In both basketball and baseball he’s been recognized as first-team All Conference.
In the classroom he graduates from Coldwater this spring with a 3.80 GPA, despite his commitment to that many athletic activities and volunteer service to the Coldwater community.
But in his personal essay he made an impression for his commitment to the future for his choice of becoming a future educator and working with the next generation of young people who might follow in his impressive example of priority.
“Sports has taught me that life isn’t always full of sunshine and rainbows,” he wrote. “And this past football season I was faced with the challenge of losing a life-long friend and teammate, Cale Wenning. When we could have hung our heads, our team chose resilience. And when we won the Division VI football title it wasn’t just for our team, but for our school, our town, and for Cale. Our team had built an unbreakable bond that season to overcome a tragedy no high school athlete should ever have to face. We knew his presence was with us every step of the way”
Welsch has chosen to attend Ohio Dominican University in the fall to pursue a degree in Middle School Education, and there’s little doubt that his future as an educator will be immensely impacted by his own personal journey – that hundreds of future scholar-athletes will benefit from an experience that they might never know personally, but benefit from, nonetheless.
Peoples Bank, in Coldwater, is proud to sponsor MAC sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
Minster’s Ava Stammen is the female recipient for 2025, having participated in three sports, cross country, track and field, and basketball, achieving the notable distinction of being an OHSAA cross country state champion in all four years of her participation.
She graduates from Minster this spring with a 4.0 GPA and a score of 31 on the ACT, and will attend the University of Toledo this fall where she will major in mechanical engineering.
Stammen is a four-time consecutive state champion with the Minster Cross Country team.
Her list of community participation activities is a page long, and her commitment to high priorities is eye-catching.
But in her personal essay, she writes of an experience that sheds insight on what she’s learned about overcoming obstacles to achieve a personal goal.
“[In my junior year], after a summer of miles, workouts, eating right, and pushing myself in workouts, I found myself in the eighth-fastest position on our team, an alternate…after working harder than ever before. It was disappointing and I wanted to stop putting effort into cross country. But it forced me to become resilient and led me to one of my greatest successes as an athlete, as in my senior year I became a scoring runner at the state cross country meet and helped bring a fourth straight state title back to Minster and the MAC.”
Recipients’ applications are ranked by panel of independent retired teachers and guidance counselors, based on grade point average, ACT/SAT score, athletic accomplishment, and personal essay.
Mason Welsch and Ava Stammen will each receive the Press Pros Sponsors’ Stan Wilker Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $3000 to help further their scholastic and athletic pursuits this fall. And it’s notable that 2025 marks $140,000 dollars in scholar-athlete awards through Press Pros since the program began in 2013 – the largest such endowment of any online media source in Ohio.
Press Pros sponsors MAC scholar-athlete awards are made possible by the following area companies and contributing sponsors:
Moeller Trucking (Maria Stein), Lefeld Welding Supply (Coldwater), Midmark Corporation (Versailles), Keyhole Pizza (Newport), McSobers (Coldwater) Leugers Insurance (Maria Stein), Kremer Roofing (Versailles), The Mr. Shoppe (Coldwater), The Edge Sports Complex (Maria Stein), 49 Degrees (Coldwater), the St. Henry Bank, Carriage Werkes (St. Henry), Huffer Chiropractic (Osgood), Phelan Insurance (Versailles), VPP Industries (Versailles), Kaup Pharmacy (Fort Recovery and Versailles), H.A. Dorsten Construction (Minster), Minster Bank, Westrich Furniture (Delphos), Minster Dental, Knapke Kitchens and Baths (Versailles), Wilson Sports Medicine (Sidney), Logan Services (Vandalia), Pla-Mor Lanes (Coldwater), People’s Bank (Coldwater), presenting sponsor, Securcom.com (Minster), Preferred Insurance (Coldwater), and the Bill and Dorothy Davis Foundation (Columbus).
SecurCom proudly sponsors MAC scholar-athletes on Press Pros Magazine.com.