Rye High Football

Garnets Defeat Clarkstown North, 28-7

By Mitch Silver

Rye High had too much going on both sides of the ball when they played under the lights at Clarkstown North High School Friday evening. QB Declan Lavelle threw three touchdowns to three different senior classmates—Mark Surhoff, James Mackle, and Matt Tepedino—while the defense allowed just five first downs and a single touchdown, scored before halftime by the Rams’ senior running back, Chris Jean-Paul.

There were plenty of plaudits to go around. Sophomore Caden Whaling added a rushing TD while the Rye D Line and linebackers forced a whopping six fumbles, recovering four, as the Garnets won their first league game of the young season.

The going will get considerably tougher this coming Friday when the team travels to Somers to take on the Tuskers and their do-everything star, Jack Kaiser. As a sophomore last year, Kaiser fell one yard short of cracking the 1,000-Yard Rushing Club. He tied John Jay-Cross River’s Bryce Ford and Clarkstown North’s Dupree Darden for the Section 1 title with 24 rushing touchdowns. Kaiser is the only junior to make this year’s Journal News Super 11.

Here’s what the running back/linebacker told the Journal News before the 2019 season began: “Running over someone is pretty nice, but I feel that I can do both, and that’s what I want to do this year more. But running over someone feels great.”

Kaiser’s team was beaten by rival Yorktown 35-12 last week in the big Husker-Tusker matchup, and they’ll be out for revenge. Should be an interesting game.