2025-26 Herald Cup: No. 1 Stevenson

Editor’s note: Now that the 2025-26 high school sports year is over, it’s time to announce the top schools in the Herald Cup standings. We devised a points system based on team state finishes to measure which of the 80-plus high schools from the Daily Herald circulation area had the best athletic year. Last week we announced the top five small schools in the Herald Cup standings. This week we’re unveiling the top large schools, one per day, starting with No. 5 on Monday and concluding now with No. 1.

High schools dream of winning IHSA titles.

Stevenson lived the dream four times during the 2025-26 school year.

The Patriots — champions in girls swimming and diving, badminton, boys water polo and girls water polo — have become the first school other than Hinsdale Central to top the Herald Cup large school standings.

Stevenson’s 170 points, calculated by weighing team finishes throughout the fall, winter and spring, are the most compiled by a school in the three years of the Herald Cup.

How they got there

The state titles speak for themselves, but so many other programs shined.

Top-10 finishes included girls golf (second), girls tennis (second), boys swimming (sixth) and boys tennis (third). The Patriots won regional titles in boys and girls soccer, girls volleyball, boys basketball and softball.

Who made it happen

The badminton doubles team of Kaitlyn Kim and Charlotte Richards won a state title, while Nivedya Nair and Katie Moy took third. Srivarshini Badrinarayanan took fifth in singles.

Swimmer Aria Grossenbach was first in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle. Nelli Sandor won the title in the 100 backstroke. Vanessa Miecznikowski, Linnea Florin, Claire Wang swam on the victorious 200 medley relay team.

Girls water polo players Elsa Kusevskis and Olivia Spieth ended high school with a fourth state title. Senior teammates Erika White, Shanee Sheinman and Arohi Mathur were part of their third straight championship.

Boys basketball players Rocco Pagliocca and Donovan Williams took turns carrying the Patriots in a season that culminated in the program’s seventh straight regional title.

Senior Jaden Dai battled in the Class 2A singles championship match in boys tennis, dropping the first set in a tiebreaker and winning the second set before ultimately falling in the third set to Buffalo Grove’s Maksim Hristov.

Key stats

The boys water polo team won its third state title since the IHSA state series began in 2002. The Patriots were led by Armeet Gill, who had a team-high 104 goals and 30 assists including 6 goals in the semifinals and final.

Goalkeeper Matthew Rutcosky made two penalty-kick saves to help send the boys soccer team into the Class 3A sectional final with a shootout victory over Barrington.

Pagliocca, the only player in program history to be on four regional championship teams, and Williams both reached 1,000 varsity points for the boys basketball team.

Key facts

The girls golf program didn’t post a top-three state until 2019. Since then, under head coach Emma Degen, the Patriots have won a state title, finished second four times and also took third place.

The girls tennis team finished second in the state for the fourth time in five seasons. The Patriots haven’t lost a dual team matchup since 2023.

They said it

“This has been a great run,” Spieth said after the girls water polo team won the state title. “Every year has been a different group of people. But it has been fun with them every year.”

“All I told the girls was, ‘Be yourself,’” girls swimming coach Art Kasemets said after the Patriots clinched their championship.