The Rye Football team saw their season come to a close on Friday, October 30, as the Garnets fell to the second-seeded Lakeland Hornets 27-18 in the sectional quarterfinals. The Garnets stayed right with Lakeland and put themselves in position to take the lead in the fourth quarter, but failed to punch a third touchdown across down the stretch in their first true road playoff game of the decade.
Sophomore quarterback Johnny Shoemaker accounted for all 18 points on the evening, running for two short TDs, finding the end zone on a two-point conversion, and kicking both a 29-yard field goal and an extra point. His offensive line did a wonderful job opening up holes for him down in the red zone in the first half, but the offense began to stall in the second and never roared back to life.
Rye’s defense stayed strong for most of the evening after allowing two early scoring drives, but eventually the resurgent Lakeland run game wore the defensive front down. A long touchdown run from the Hornets that increased the lead from 21-18 to 27-18 put the game permanently out of reach.
The game featured several momentum swings, as the home team jumped out to a 14-0 lead in front of their raucous crowd before the Garnets responded with 18 straight points to take a lead into halftime. Across the final two quarters, the Hornets responded to outscore the visitors 13-0 and advance to the semifinals.
Rye finishes a disappointing season 5-4 with victories over Clarkstown North, Nyack, Mount Vernon, Eastchester, and Cornwall. The Garnets were never fully healthy, which set them back just one year after good health followed them throughout their New York state championship run. They will enter 2027 looking to bounce back, and the future of head coach Dino Garr will come into question again this offseason after 51 seasons as a high school head coach and more than four decades at Rye.
