From the Desk of Jackie Nicholson, Executive Director of Athletics
One Department. One Team. One Tiger Family.

Dear Tiger Family,
It is with tremendous excitement that I welcome our student-athletes, coaches, staff, alumni, families, fans, and friends back for the 2026-27 academic year.

The beginning of a new school year always brings renewed energy and optimism to our campus. Our teams are returning with ambitious goals, our facilities are preparing to host another full year of competition and engagement, and our department is ready to build upon the momentum established during an outstanding 2025-26 year.

As we begin this new chapter, our theme will be:

One Department. One Team. One Tiger Family.

This theme reflects who we are and how we will move forward together. Although our student athletes represent different teams, sports, and competitive levels, we are united by one department and one shared commitment to excellence. We support one another, celebrate one another, and recognize that every student-athlete, coach, staff member, alumnus, donor, partner, and fan contributes to the success of Tiger Athletics.

Celebrating an Outstanding 2025-26 Year
Before turning our attention to the year ahead, it is important to recognize several accomplishments from 2025-26.

Our student-athletes continued to distinguish themselves nationally. Wrestling’s Josh Harkless won the heavyweight national title and was named the Most Dominant Wrestler at the NCAA Division III Championships. RIT produced 10 NCAA All-Americans, while 12 student-athletes qualified for NCAA individual championships. Baseball and Men’s Lacrosse won Liberty League championships and played in the NCAA Tournament, highlighted by a run by Men’s Lacrosse to the national championship game for the fourth time in the last six seasons.

Our Tigers also excelled in the classroom. Forty-seven student-athletes earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-District recognition, while Josh Harkless and Joe Holenstein received CSC First Team Academic All-America honors. Thirty-seven student-athletes were inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma, the National Collegiate Student-Athlete Honor Society, which requires a cumulative grade-point average of 3.40 or higher.

The impact of our Tigers also extended well beyond competition. RIT student-athletes completed approximately 8,000 hours of community service during the year. At our annual opening meeting, the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee helped collect more than 600 items for RIT FoodShare, and SAAC provided Thanksgiving meals for 25 families through a partnership with CP Rochester.

Those accomplishments are a powerful reminder that success at RIT is measured not only by championships and awards, but also by academic achievement, leadership, service, and the impact our Tigers have on the broader community.

Investing in the Student-Athlete Experience
Student-athlete development, engagement, and well-being remain central to our mission.

During 2025-26, approximately 600 student-athletes participated in programming focused on leadership, nutrition, academic strategies, career development, mental performance, financial literacy, and overall well-being. These opportunities were supported through collaboration with university partners, including the Title IX Office, Health Promotion, Academic Success Center, and Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement.

This fall, we will also welcome the inaugural cohort of Tiger’s L.E.A.D., our new student-athlete leadership academy centered on leadership, engagement, and personal and professional development. Thirty student-athletes were selected to participate in the first 2026-27 cohort.

These initiatives reinforce our commitment to preparing student athletes for success in competition, in the classroom, in their careers, and in their communities.

A New Era for Our Facilities and Community
The opening of Judson Stadium in February 2026 represented a transformative milestone for RIT Athletics. The stadium provides an exceptional environment for our student-athletes while creating new opportunities for campus engagement, community connection, and institutional pride.

RIT hosted the NCAA Division II and Division III Women’s Lacrosse National Championships. The event welcomed student-athletes, coaches, families, fans, and NCAA representatives from across the country while showcasing our university and new athletics facilities on a national stage. Our athletics spaces continue to be important resources for the entire campus community.

Welcoming New Members of the Tiger Family
We are excited to welcome two new leaders to RIT Athletics.

Jake Fisler, Head Men’s and Women’s Tennis Coach
Jake Fisler begins his first season leading the RIT men’s and women’s tennis programs. He comes to RIT after serving at Alfred University, where both programs set school records for victories during his tenure. A native of Webster, N.Y., he competed at Houghton University, earned NCCAA All-America recognition in 2019, received four All-Empire 8 honors, and helped Houghton win the 2020-21 Empire 8 Championship. We look forward to the energy, culture, and student-athlete-centered leadership he will bring to RIT Tennis.

Meet Coach Jake Fisler

Jackie Murray, Associate Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Marketing and External Operations
Jackie Murray joins RIT with more than a decade of experience in collegiate athletics marketing, fan engagement, and brand advancement. In her new role, she will oversee athletics marketing, the fan experience, external partnerships, and brand visibility, with an emphasis on strengthening game-day environments, community engagement, digital strategy, ticketing, and sponsorship initiatives. She most recently served as Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing and Fan Engagement at Colgate University.

Meet Jackie Murray

Please join me in welcoming Jake Fisler and Jackie Murray to our Tiger Family.

Looking Ahead to the Fall
Competition begins tonight with Women’s Soccer hosting Geneseo at Judson Stadium, Volleyball traveling to Keuka, and Men’s Soccer hosting Brockport. We encourage everyone to attend events throughout the year, wear your orange and black, and help us provide our student-athletes with an outstanding home-field advantage.

You can find schedules, results, live coverage, team information, tickets, and the latest Tiger news on the RIT Athletics website and through the RIT Athletics mobile app.

The reach of Tiger Athletics continues to grow. From July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, the athletics website recorded more than 3 million active users, including 1.1 million new users. The RIT Athletics app recorded 10,608 unique app opens and delivered more than 429,000 push notifications during the same reporting period.

One Tiger Family
The accomplishments of RIT Athletics would not be possible without the dedication of our student-athletes, coaches, staff, university partners, alumni, families, donors, sponsors, and fans.

As the new academic year begins, I encourage every member of our community to embrace our theme. Support a team beyond your own. Attend a competition. Welcome a new colleague. Celebrate a student-athlete’s achievement. Reconnect with an alumnus. Invite someone new to experience Tiger Athletics.

Every contribution matters, and every member of our community strengthens the whole.

Together, we are One Department. One Team. One Tiger Family.

Thank you for your continued commitment to RIT Athletics. I look forward to seeing you at our competitions and celebrating another outstanding year of Tiger pride.

Go Tigers!

Jackie Nicholson
Executive Director of Intercollegiate Athletics
Rochester Institute of Technology

From the Desk of Coach Liz Masterson

With the end of preseason, the Women’s Soccer team is off to a great start. Over the past week, we’ve been balancing the workload on the field with classroom sessions, team building activities, and orientation for the first-year student athletes. 

The team is going after something unique. They have a special connection and bond, love and joy they bring to the field and to each other feel unparalleled. While they hold onto that support for one another, they are also determined to keep the environment competitive and intense. The team has a great chance at accomplishing their goals together if we can continue to balance both of these important team standards when the road inevitably gets hard. 

The Liberty League is always intense, and there are new faces across the coaching ranks. With many teams seeing coaching changes over the past couple of years, the league is as unpredictable as it is challenging. 

We continue to see many alumnae visiting the new stadium and coming back to campus to see all of the growth and changes. We always appreciate the chance to reconnect with our former players and give them a glimpse into the world of RIT Women’s Soccer, where so much has changed, and yet, so much feels the same. 

We hope to see you at an RIT Women’s Soccer game this fall! 

Greetings from the RIT Women's Volleyball Team! We have been back on campus since August 16th, gearing up for the start of the season. Our assistant coach Jason Kozak and I really enjoy working with this group. We have added seven newcomers to our 10 returning players, while 15 are either first- or second-year members of the program. They have embraced the focus of being process orientated while trying to make improvements within each practice and weight room opportunity.

We already see us growing together as a team and striving to be great teammates. While still being relatively early in preseason, we seem to have some quality depth and versatility. We are hoping that will lead to many of us contributing as we pursue reaching our goals this season!

We begin our season tonight at Keuka College and travel to St. Vincent for our opening tournament this weekend. SUNY Geneseo comes to campus for our home opener on September 9th. A trip to Boston and then playing local rivals SUNY Brockport and St. John Fisher the next weekend will have us ready for the Liberty League season to begin at home in late September when we host Vassar and Bard. We are pushing ourselves to be back in contention come Liberty League Tournament time in mid-November.

We are also really looking forward to having our families, friends and alumni with us this fall. Hoping we'll see many of you at Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend and/or any of our other home matches in Clark Gymnasium.  Please, let us know if you'll be on campus or if you are able to attend one of our away matches. We look forward to catching up with each of you this season!

GO TIGERS!!!!
Jim Lodes – RIT Women’s Volleyball

2026 Cross Country Season Preview

The 2026 Cross-Country teams are set to start their season this Saturday at the Tom Balon Classic in Brockport. The Tigers are set to improve on their 2025 third (men) and fifth (women) place finishes in the Liberty League Championship and fifth (men) and sixth (women) place finishes at the Niagara Regional Championship. 

Leading the women's team will be a very strong twosome in returning seniors Kathryn Arbegast and Reese Georgia who each qualified for the 2025 NCAA Division III Championships. Kathryn will be a threat to be top-three in virtually every race she contests this year after a strong 2025 campaign, while Reese showed great improvement on the track in 2026 and will bring that confidence and experience into this season.  With two low numbers up front, the Tigers will be able to concentrate on grouping the next three to five runners in a tight scoring spread. Returners Rachel Ladd (Sr), Julianna Cavanaugh (So), Valerie Gilbert (So), Victoria Raghubar (So), and Sydney Borofsky (Jr) along with incoming first year Olivia Divine will work together to provide that tight group that the Tigers have been known for the past several seasons. 

The men will begin this year with only three of the top-seven back from 2025 due to graduation and co-op. Most teams would look to regroup; RIT looks to reload with the tremendous depth that has been built up over the last several years. The goal for the 2026 team will be “pack running” trying to get as many of the Tigers running together as a group to maximize the team scoring. In that pack will be seniors Joe Krenzer and Zach Sowers, juniors Spencer Buff, Matt Califf, Nate Flaherty Bencio Benzan and Nathan Merlo, and sophomores Luca Strangis, Calvin Barrett and Matt Monnes. Incoming first-years Aaron Meyer, Ben Arbegast and Dylan Walsh will challenge the returners for the top-seven positions on the team. 

The Tigers will be competing locally on three weekends; Sept 5th at Brockport, Sept. 19th at Genesee Valley Park, Sept. 26th at Roberts Wesleyan and will have three regular season meets at Fredonia Oct 2nd, Houghton Oct. 10th and Oberlin Oct. 17th. The Liberty League Championships on Halloween will be hosted by Bard, and the NCAA Niagara Regional Championships will be hosted by Fredonia on Nov. 14th.  The season culminates on Oct. 21st in Northfield, Minn. at the NCAA Division III Championships hosted by Carleton.