Maple Grove High School's athletic teams will begin competing in the Lake Conference in fall 2025, the school announced.

That will place Maple Grove in a conference that has a concentration of the state's largest schools. The Lake's Minnetonka (3,348 students) and Wayzata (3,321) are the two largest schools in the state, according to figures from the Minnesota State High School League. Lake schools Edina (2,506) and Eden Prairie (2,479) stand fifth and seventh. Maple Grove comes in 12th with 2,132 students.

The other Lake teams and their student populations: St. Michael-Albertville, 2,092; Hopkins, 1,677; Buffalo, 1,647.

Maple Grove will exit the 14-school Northwest Suburban, where student populations range from 2,545 at Blaine, the fourth-biggest school in the state, to 691 at Totino-Grace. The spread is such that the Northwest Suburban has football teams in Class 6A, 5A and 4A.

The move also will put Maple Grove in regular contact with the most successful sports programs in the state. Some examples: Minnetonka and Wayzata played for the Class 4A boys basketball championship last season. Lake schools met for the Class 4A girls basketball title the past three years. Three of the past four big-class boys hockey state champs came from the Lake; six of the past 10 girls hockey big-class champs were Lake teams.

In its release, Maple Grove listed transportation as a concern in the Northwest Suburban.

"Growing student enrollment has expanded our athletic/activity program so much that teams are traveling more often and further away to meet competition needs," the release said. "Transportation costs are also quickly rising, making it more challenging to maintain such a varied schedule."

The school said in the release that it would continue to schedule some Northwestern Suburban schools, especially those from Maple Grove's Osseo Area Schools district, Osseo and Park Center.