Good morning. 🏈⚽🏑🏐 It’s Friday, Sept. 4. Tonight, Rye football takes the field for the first time since completing a 14-0 state championship season in November. Over the course of the 2025-26 academic year, Garnet sports teams won four state titles and nine section crowns, both school records.

But as a new fall season gets underway, now is the time to focus on a new class of seniors and what they hope to achieve.

“2027 will be a special class in their own right,” said Athletic Director Susan Reid. “It will be interesting to see how next year’s senior class creates their own individuality in the world of athletics.”

Already an accomplished scorer in lacrosse, senior Charlie Brady steps in as QB1 on the football team. Senior 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. Field hockey had more roster turnover than any other team at Rye and still opened its season with a shutout win last night.

It may be unlikely Rye — or any other school in the state — will win four state titles again this year. But when the winning is this consistent from sport to sport, year after year, culture is undoubtedly a factor.

“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.”

Let’s invest in a new season of Rye sports in this edition of “Between the Lines.”

“Between the Lines” is curated by Chris Marshall.

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Winning is contagious. Rye High School’s athletic department, and the football team in particular, support that unscientific fact. Every year, the school seems to come down with a case of “section championship-a-tosis,” acquiring more trophies than the year before. But is it sustainable?

“I’d certainly like to think so, and I think our football program’s record over the last 20 years or so proves that it is,” said Dino Garr, the winningest coach in New York high school football history. “We graduated some special players last year on offense and defense, no question about it. But as is always the case, the next group now has their turn.”

Garr’s 51st season on the sidelines kicks off at 7 tonight against Cornwall, the opponent the Garnets beat in the state semifinals last year en route to the program’s — and Garr’s — fifth state championship.

Four of this year’s senior captains were starters on that team: Charlie Brady, Jagger Fenton, Benji Kaplan, and Luke Denvir. Rye’s 2026 football team is not the 2025 football team. They have yet to play a game. But the current crop of Garnets intends to do what prior generations have done: win.

“We have a ton of talent coming back this year, and so many guys on the team are close friends who have been playing football together for a long time,” Brady said. “We’re all fully aware of what we did last year and that we graduated some tremendous players, but this is a new season."

The Garnets, who have won 34 of their past 35 games, are no strangers to having a target on their backs. Cornwall will especially want revenge after advancing all the way to the Class A semifinals, only to have its season end with a 35-7 beatdown.

The eight-game regular-season schedule won’t be easy. Six days from now, Rye plays Clarkstown South on the road. Challenging tests also await against Mount Vernon (Sept. 25) and familiar foe Somers (Oct. 2). And Rye hosts archrival Harrison on Oct. 17 at Nugent Stadium.

It’s a long, difficult path to the championship at the Dome in Syracuse, but no team has more experience rising to the challenge.

“Every team we play this year will want to beat a state champion,” Brady said. “We’re used to that in Rye. We’ve got some really good athletes on this team, and I know we’re all looking forward to getting after it.”

— By Steven Kearney

Weather Report: The forecast for kickoff tonight is 79 degrees and cloudy. Check out the weekend weather forecast for Rye here.

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🏐 Congrats to Amelie Modesto — winner of the Sportech Performer of the Week.

In Rye volleyball’s season-opener Wednesday, the Garnets picked up where they left off, sweeping Tappan Zee in a rematch of last year’s section championship.

Rye had no problem starting its title defense on the road, winning 25-14, 25-13, 25-23. Senior Amelie Modesto filled the stat sheet with 21 assists, three aces, six digs, and two kills.

Modesto was a key contributor to the Garnets’ run through last year’s section tournament, where they swept three straight playoff opponents before topping Tappan Zee 3-1 at Westchester County Center.

Now a senior captain, Modesto helped lead Rye to a sweep of the Dutchmen on Wednesday. Rye has two more road matches, today at Valhalla and Tuesday at Ardsley, before the home-opener Sept. 10 against Dobbs Ferry, last year’s Class B section runner-up.

This Week’s Rye Record: 3-0

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