There are good years, and then there’s the school year Smithson Valley just had. The Rangers captured the 2025-26 Dan Cook Cup — the Express-News award honoring the best all-around athletic program in the San Antonio area — and they didn’t just win it. They posted 143 points, the highest total since 2017, finishing more than 40 points clear of runner-up Davenport. It’s the school’s first time hoisting the cup, and the two programs flipped spots after Davenport edged them a year ago.
All-sports awards like the Cook Cup are a different kind of trophy. Any school can catch lightning in one sport for one season. Winning a points-based award across an entire athletic calendar requires depth — boys and girls programs, fall through spring, all pulling weight at the same time. That’s what makes Smithson Valley’s runaway so impressive.
The tone was set in the fall, when the football team won its second consecutive state championship in its third straight title-game appearance. The 28-6 win over Frisco Lone Star in the Class 5A Division I final was a defensive masterclass: Lone Star was held scoreless until the final minute, limited to 230 total yards, and battered by six sacks, four forced fumbles, and a pick-six. Senior defensive lineman Hudson Woods — two sacks and two forced fumbles in the final — finished a monster season with 18 sacks and 30 tackles for loss, and has since moved on to SMU.
Then the spring delivered the program’s most emotional breakthrough. The girls soccer team, twice heartbroken in state semifinals in 2023 and 2025, finished the job emphatically: a perfect 29-0 season capped by a 1-0 win over Prosper Walnut Grove in the 5A Division I final, with Alondra Sanchez scoring the championship goal. It’s the first title in program history, and senior Addison Briscoe was named the Express-News girls soccer player of the year.
Add four regional titles across other sports and a stack of postseason individual honors, and the math gets lopsided fast.
For young athletes, Smithson Valley’s year is a case study in program culture. Championships in football and girls soccer don’t share a roster, a coaching staff, or even a season — what they share is a building where winning has become the expectation. That’s not built in a single offseason, and as the Rangers’ trophy case fills up, the rest of San Antonio is now chasing the standard they set.
Source: San Antonio Express-News
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