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Outgoing Winchester High School Director of Athletics Marc Arria and his staff, led by Lindsey Quigley, recently orchestrated a day that included all of the pomp and circumstance and staging that befits the large number of senior student-athletes this year, who are planning to continue to play sports in college.
Public schools have traditionally faced the dilemma of students flocking to private institutions once they hit high school, but in this year’s WHS senior class, the student-athletes in this group bucked that trend four years ago to play for the hometown Red & Black.
Their decision was reawarded with acceptances into many Division 1 colleges, where they will take their athletic talents to the next level.
The Class of 2026 was exceptional. They won the Middlesex League championship in field hockey, football, girls soccer and girls volleyball, just in the fall alone. Boys lacrosse and girls tennis followed that up with league titles in the spring.
Many of the names to come are quite familiar to WHS sports enthusiasts, and right beside their names is the college that they will be attending and the sport that they will be playing once they land on campus.
These now-former Red & Black players are in no particular order: Gaby Hermsdorf (Colby, soccer), Keira McNamara (Denison, track), Abby Dupee (Boston College, cheerleading), Grace Farina (Marquette, gymnastics), Andrea Bilic (Connecticut College, tennis), Johanna Melhorn (Union, volleyball), Daryana Skobeleva (Case Western, tennis), Tessa Capadanno (Trinity, softball), Anamaria Andronesi (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, swimming), Isabella Bogovich (Tufts, field hockey), Sloane McCarthy (Pomona-Pitzer, lacrosse), Madison Von Meering (Catholic University, field hockey), Ryan Ellington Heisler (Leeds Beckett, soccer), Kai Napadow Baquero (Cornell, wrestling), Gianni DePrimeo (Navy, lacrosse), Adam Fiorentino (Carleton, baseball), Ryan Martin (Dickinson, lacrosse), Ted Budreski (Georgetown, lacrosse), Tom Duval (Salve Regina, soccer), Michael Ficociello (Bates, football), Cooper Spence (Bowdoin, lacrosse), Carson Sarpong (Rochester Institute of Technology, basketball), Will Mango (Haverford, lacrosse), Bryan Harrison (Harvard, football), Jasper Carswell (Denison, track), Samantha Gal (Providence, field hockey), Lilly Stewart (George Washington, rowing), Eddie Donlon (Emmanuel, wrestling), Christopher Russo (Mass Maritime, lacrosse) and Alex Machemer (Grinnell, cross-country).
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He began covering Winchester sports for the News in November 2024 and is currently its Sports Editor. He can be reached at editor@winchesternews.org.
