Thud. Thud. Thud.
The first time Athletic Director Susan Reid heard a repetitive bouncing noise outside her office at Rye High School, she got up to look out the window. The sound, which she grew accustomed to over time, was Paige Tepedino playing a game of wall ball during her recovery from ACL surgery.
The 2026 RHS graduate, who starred for the Garnets’ basketball and lacrosse teams, is the first example that comes to Reid’s mind when recounting what made last year’s senior class so special.
“This is a kid who had an ACL injury last summer and worked hard to make it back in a safe way for her senior year of lacrosse and put in the time to get there,” Reid said of Tepedino. “That’s so true of so many of our seniors. They had such a strong work ethic, even outside of their teams’ games and practices, and you could see the result of the time they put into their craft.”
The result was the greatest year in RHS athletics history. In the 2025-26 academic year, the Garnets claimed four state championships and nine section titles, both school records. On Monday, the New York State Sportswriters Association named RHS the winner of the Kerr Cup, an annual award given to the school that has the most success across all sports.
In addition to state crowns for football, girls soccer, hockey, and boys lacrosse, three other teams played in their sport’s final weekend, with boys soccer finishing as state runner-up, and boys basketball and girls lacrosse making the state semifinals. Three boys golfers also finished in the top 15 of the state championship tournament, helping Section 1 win a team state title.
The Kerr Cup, which assigns points based on schools’ postseason finishes, has been awarded annually since 2009. The 89 points RHS racked up in 2025-26 are the second most in the award’s history, trailing only Fairport in 2023-24.
“Most student-athletes under NYSPHSAA never even make a state championship game, let alone win one,” Reid said. “To do it in multiple sports in the same year – so many students work that hard and never get that opportunity. When the football team got their rings this year, I was like, ‘I hope this isn’t something they take for granted,’ because this is not the norm.”
There have been years when Rye won two state championships, the latest in 2023 when football and girls soccer both completed the feat, but the hardware acquired in 2025-26 was unprecedented.
“If you watched any one of our teams last year, there were times they were down, but you never counted them out,” Reid said. “At times, they liked to give us heart attacks, but the senior leaders had a resiliency about them that carried through. They were very laid back, very matter of fact, said, ‘This is what we do,’ then performed and came through on top.”
The Class of 2026 showed time and again it embraced every opportunity to get better, even in situations that could be viewed as a thankless grind.
“My surgery was a year ago yesterday,” Tepedino said in early August. “It was definitely hard, and probably more mental for me, but I was always excited to go to physical therapy because I knew that’s where the progress was going to happen.”
After missing out on the chance to help basketball defend its section title, Tepedino returned to help fellow seniors Beau Whaling, Annie Toulouse, and Mia Howson lead lacrosse to the state semifinals.
That quartet is among the 33 seniors who committed to play a college sport. Combined with the 38 commits from the Class of 2025, it’s the school’s highest two-year total of college-bound student-athletes.
“As an educator getting into this world, being an athletic director was never something I aspired to,” Reid said. “Being in this role and looking at those words – student-athlete – I can honestly say that’s what Rye is about. While I just mentioned resiliency on the field and court, academics are at the forefront. That’s their No. 1.”
Three-sport stars Henry Shoemaker and Carson Miller are Harvard-bound, along with their fellow football and lacrosse teammate Nigel Strazzini. Clare Nemsick, a lock-down defender for Rye’s undefeated girls soccer team, will double dip playing soccer and lacrosse at Bucknell. Phoebe Greto, a Denison-bound hooper, also killed it in volleyball. The list goes on.
But with a new school year set to begin, now is the time to usher in a new class of seniors and what they hope to achieve.
“The Class of 2026 was an important part of our success,” said RHS principal Andrew Hara, “and set an incredible example for the students who will follow them.”
Already an accomplished goal scorer in lacrosse, rising senior Charlie Brady steps in to fill Miller’s shoes as QB1 on the football team. Newly named girls soccer captain Charlotte Keenan has never had a season end before the state semifinals. In boys soccer, Kasen Scarperi replaces the senior leadership of Shun Nagata and Lex Cox.
Year after year of state championship success may not be the new normal, but when the winning comes this consistently across all sports and seasons, culture is undoubtedly a factor.
“This was a season for the ages for Rye athletics, not only because of the incredible success our teams achieved,” Hara said, “but because of the culture that made that success possible.”
Statistically speaking, it’s unlikely Rye – or any other school in New York – will win four state championships in the school year ahead. But Reid offers a reminder these are high schoolers, and a state championship isn’t the only life goal.
“I don’t know in my lifetime if we’ll see that again, but I hope every class has their own individuality,” Reid said. “2027 will be a special class in their own right. It will be interesting to see how next year’s senior class creates their own individuality in the world of athletics.”
Of course, every team wants to win their last game. But when Tepedino’s long return to play lacrosse ended with a playoff loss – as nearly every high school athlete’s career does – it didn’t detract from what she or the team accomplished.
Moments after falling 11-7 against eventual state champion Sayville, the team recounted section and regional championship victories, Tepedino’s four-goal game in her midseason debut, plus all the small and big wins that occurred off the field along the way.
“Before even getting on the bus, we stood in circle for many minutes and appreciated each other,” said lacrosse coach Michelle Mason. “When we got on bus, we were sad, then a couple hours into the trip, we got the music going. We moved on from the emotional songs and back into the good stuff, our favorite songs from all the time we spent together all year.”
One of those songs – “Scars to Your Beautiful,” by Alessia Cara – was a fitting anthem, considering Tepedino’s recovery from knee surgery. By the end of the drive back to RHS, the team remained disappointed they didn’t have one more game to play, but appreciative of their final 225-mile bus trip together.
“It ends and then everybody has to turn the page so quickly,” Mason said. “We truly enjoyed spending almost every day together.”
Tepedino departed from Rye this week to continue her lacrosse career at USC. Her 2026 classmates have dispersed elsewhere to pursue sports, academics, and budding careers.
Whether the path for the Class of 2027 leads to more state championships, or successes in other forms, Reid is excited to hear the next group of seniors knocking on the door – or the wall outside her office – as the fall sports season begins Sept. 4.
“I’m sad when seniors leave every year, because you get so close to them, they’re like your own children when you’re trying to keep tabs on them,” Reid said. “But football practices start, then all the other sports, then you’re just as invested with the kids in front of you.”
