HARRISON – A picture-perfect fall afternoon, the aroma of burgers and dogs on the grill, and thousands of excited spectators packing the bleachers at McGillicuddy Stadium. The sights and sounds of “The Game” make this yearly tradition look straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Despite the picturesque nature of the annual football game, what really matters is the score when the clock hits zero. This time around, the Garnets got their storybook ending, with a historic 49-28 win Saturday over the Huskies.
Rye scored the most points in a single game in the rivalry’s nearly 100-year history, topping a mark set in 1954. The 76 total points are also a rivalry record.
The win gave the Garnets (8-0) an undefeated regular season for the second year in a row, something they haven’t done since their back-to-back state championship seasons in 2007 and 2008 (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).
“It was a super job,” said Rye coach Dino Garr. “With the whole rivalry thing, it’s always hard to get through that, but it was a big win for us.”
After a quick dip in the brook behind Nugent Stadium, a long-standing tradition after winning “The Game,” the Garnets have little time to dry off in preparation of their first playoff game. No. 1 seed Rye hosts Brewster (5-3) on Halloween, the first step in the road to the team’s first state title since 2023.
The playoffs may be the most important part of the year, but no single game is bigger than Rye-Harrison. Before Saturday’s game, senior quarterback Carson Miller was presented with the Christopher Mello Memorial Scholarship Award, for upholding Mello’s legacy of sportsmanship, academic achievement, and leadership.
It didn’t take long for him to exhibit those traits on the field, leading the Garnets’ opening possession straight into the end zone. Miller capped off Rye’s first drive with a 19-yard touchdown pass to senior Sam Surak to open the scoring. The touchdown was the first of Surak’s career, after making his starting debut late in the season following an injury to senior receiver Thomas Goldszer.
Miller ran in his seventh touchdown of the season to give Rye a 14-0 second-quarter lead. Harrison got back within one score on a touchdown by junior Jason Crupi, then the Garnets pulled away. For the sixth time this year, senior running back Charlie Garnett logged a multi-score game, finding the end zone from 22 and 41 yards out to give Rye a 28-7 halftime lead.
He ran for 141 yards, one shy of his season high, and now has 16 touchdowns on the season. For Garnett, the victory carried extra significance, given his absence from last year’s victory and the team’s losses to Harrison his freshman and sophomore years in 2022 and 2023.
“I can’t even tell you how good this feels,” Garnett said. “When I decided to come back to Rye, I had Harrison in mind. I wanted to get this win, and to get it in the fashion that we did is incredibly special.”
Harrison scored to open the second half, then Miller’s second touchdown run put Rye ahead 35-14. In a scene highly reminiscent of Rye’s recent win against Eastchester, senior Henry Shoemaker bounced off the ensuing kickoff off a Harrison special teams player and back into his hands to promptly give the Garnets the ball back.
Shoemaker then found the endzone just a couple minutes later on a 27-yard dart from Miller that put the Garnets up 42-14. Harrison scored two more times with the outcome already decided, and Rye backup junior quarterback Charlie Brady scored on a 75-yard tuck and run to finish off the rout.
After beating Harrison in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2021, Rye has now won 22 of the past 25 meetings.
A win Friday against Brewster could also mean “The Game” Part II if Harrison is able to beat Mahopac in the opening round of the playoffs. It would be the fourth time Harrison and Rye faced off multiple times in the same season (2015, 2018, 2019). In each of those instances, Rye swept the season series.
