Alumni Reflect on “Special” Bond of Sharing Sports With Siblings

Jonas Pope IV
March 10 2025

Last May, Ravenscroft’s Alumni Association inducted two outstanding runners, Wesley Frazier ’13 and Ryen Frazier ’15, into the Sports Hall of Fame. The sisters — both multiple honorees as All-Americans and national champions who went on to compete at the collegiate level — set the pace for track & field athletes during their time here and continue to challenge and inspire Ravens who participate in the sport today.

“My experience competing at both the high school and collegiate levels has reinforced the unique benefits of having a sibling as a teammate — most importantly, a built-in support system,” Wesley Frazier said. “At Ravenscroft, Ryen and I only overlapped on the track team for a few years, but we knew we could count on each other, whether we were running a relay or simply competing side by side. This foundation of mutual support continued through college, where we could always rely on each other for encouragement in times of success and resilience in moments of adversity.”

As siblings competing in the same sport, the Frazier sisters are part of a tradition at Ravenscroft that goes back decades. As a PreK-12 school living out its mission to nurture individual potential, Ravenscroft has long encouraged students to get involved in co- and extracurricular activities, including athletics.

Here, we catch up with a few of these alumni siblings (and one standout in the Class of 2025) who, like Ryen and Wesley, have excelled in the same sports at Ravenscroft and beyond — and hear what that shared experience has meant to them as athletes, as individuals and as family.

Jump To

“A huge advantage”

McGinnis brothers reflect on family legacy in varsity swimming

As Eric McGinnis ’06 recalls, he and his brother Zach ’09 got into swimming because, simply put, it was convenient for their parents.

Their older brother, Matt ’04, was already going to swim practice, so it made life easier for all three boys to participate.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Matt confirmed with a laugh.

The rest is Ravenscroft swimming history as the McGinnis brothers — spread out at Ravenscroft over a nine-year span at a time when the boys swim program won multiple state championships — each built an impressive career here before going on to success in college and beyond.

The McGinnis brothers — Eric ’06, Zach ’09 and Matt ’04 — pose together in this family photo from the 2003-04 swim season; Matt, at left, hoists the 2001 NCISAA State Championship trophy with his teammates in this photo from the 2001 Corvus (the team would win again in 2002 and 2003); Matt, with Coach Billy Thorne, holds his team MVP trophy in this photo from the 2004 Corvus.

Matt was a member of the 2003 National Junior Team and competed in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. At the University of Texas, he was a four-time All-American and a six-time Big 12 conference champion. He went on to break a world record in the 100 Freestyle in 2013.

Eric was named the 2006 North Carolina High School State Championships Swimmer of the Meet and swam in the 2006 U.S. Nationals. Zach twice earned Ravenscroft team MVP honors, as both a junior and a senior, and twice swam at Junior Nationals.

Like Matt, Eric and Zach continued their swimming careers in college, both starting out at the University of Kentucky. Eric reached All-American status there as a sophomore and set multiple records during his career. After earning Freshman of the Year honors at Kentucky, Zach transferred to Virginia Tech, where — despite shoulder surgery that kept him out of competition his sophomore year — he became one of the most successful swimmers in school history as a five-time All-American and two-time ACC champion.

The three brothers agreed that their championship mentality started early.

Eric McGinnis, shown in a 2006 yearbook candid, was the 2006 North Carolina High School State Championships Swimmer of the Meet as well as the team’s MVP; Zach McGinnis — a two-time team MVP and Junior Nationals competitor — is shown swimming for the Ravens in this 2009 Corvus photo.

“A lot of fights playing video games,” Matt said. “A lot of fights about who’s the fastest sprinter — pretty much everything that people can compete in, we competed in.”

“Matt’s the most competitive person that’s ever lived,” Eric pointed out, as Matt laughed but did not deny the characterization. “If he loses at anything it’s a problem for everyone. If Zach would beat him in video games, he would force Zach to play him again until he beat him.”

As the youngest, Zach admitted, he felt the pressure coming behind his accomplished brothers.

“Definitely, in the beginning,” he said. “By the time I was 15, Matt was already a world champion.”

The brothers remember their time swimming for the Ravens as special.

“For me, it was awesome,” Eric said. “I always looked up to Matt, and he was always very encouraging. He helped lead me in a good way and encouraged me to forge my own path in the sport. I never really felt like I was living in Matt’s shadow. If anything, when I did, it was more other people projecting that on me. I really enjoyed competing with him. It was always helpful for me.”

Matt said one of his best memories was breaking a relay record as a junior, when Eric was a freshman, and the Ravens boys swim team won their 11th state championship. Even with all he accomplished in his career, he said, that record-breaking relay team with his brother stands out above it all.

Matt, Eric and Zach McGinnis attend a family wedding in the fall of 2024.

Zach was able to enjoy two years swimming at Ravenscroft with his brothers, starting as a seventh-grader.

“We used to do almost the entire relay, and it would just be our family,” Zach said. “That was pretty cool. It was a unique experience.”

Eric said he remembers watching Matt, then considered the top recruit in the country, “obliterate people” in the water and realized his older brother was setting the standard for how to compete. It made him step his game up.

Matt noted that there is a brotherhood to high school swimming you don’t get anywhere else, so being able to break a relay record with his actual brothers was a lifetime experience he’ll never forget.

Zach said he definitely benefited from living under the same roof as two top recruits, who in some ways served as additional coaches supporting his pursuit of excellence.

“It’s almost like getting an inside look at Michael Phelps or something like that,” Zach said. “You can call them up almost daily. It’s a huge advantage. I don’t think I would have been nearly as good without them.”

“It’s special when you can do it as a family”

Football — a family tradition — brought the Gonet brothers even closer, on and off the field

Cole Gonet ’09 and his brother, Connor ’11, were able to share the football field for two years together at Ravenscroft.

Ravenscroft football is a family tradition for the Gonets. Their dad, Ned, coached the Ravens varsity football team for more than 40 years, retiring in 2022 as the longest-serving high school football coach in North Carolina’s history. He still serves as the school’s Athletic Director.

“From the day I was born, I was on the sidelines,” Cole said. “My whole life has been there.”

“It’s really kind of all we’ve known growing up,” Connor added. “Raised on the sidelines, which meant, not only was I there with my older brother, but every year I had 30 to 40 other players that were older-brother mentors to me.”

Cole Gonet — #33 at center right in this 2009 Corvus photo — was a two-time All-State selection and 2008 Oasis Shrine Bowl selection; the Gonet brothers — Connor is seventh from left in third row, and Cole is fourth from left in fifth row — played together as Ravens for two years under their father, Ned, fourth row center.

For a two-year period, however, Cole and Connor spent every day of their lives together, training, playing, going to school. That period, both brothers agree, brought them closer. Cole, the older of the two, remembers welcoming his brother to varsity-level competition, purposely hitting Connor harder to prepare him for Ravens football.

Connor, though, more than held his own, earning playing time on both sides of the ball as a freshman.

“I think it was important to make sure I was ready to go and ready for competition,” Connor said. “But I want to make sure it’s noted that I hit back just as hard.”

That toughness led to plenty of success for the Gonets.

Cole, a two-time All-State selection, was named All-Conference three times and was a 2008 Oasis Shrine Bowl selection. Connor was also a two-time All-State selection and in 2009 was named the Big East Conference Player of the Year.

Connor Gonet — wearing #44 in this photo from the 2011 yearbook — was a two-time All-State selection and the 2009 Big East Conference Player of the Year; Cole, #44, went on to play at the University of Richmond, while Connor played at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Cole continued playing football in college as a linebacker at the University of Richmond, while Connor joined the UNC-Chapel Hill program as a walk-on and made his mark on special teams.

Years later, the lessons they took from playing football at Ravenscroft still stick with them.

“[My dad] has been doing this for a long time and instilled a lot of great traits in us,” Connor said. “Leading by example and making sure we work as hard as we can, give 100% — I think those traits are invaluable. And both my brother and I, I think, carry that into our professional careers now, and obviously into our relationships we have inside and outside work. Every day that I go about my work life, those traits continue to serve.”

Cole, who was a standout player and captain by the time Connor arrived on the Ravenscroft team, enjoyed watching Connor earn his stripes, with the result that the two young men shared more than just a last name with the coach and each other. They lined up next to each other, going to battle every Friday night.

Connor and Cole celebrate Ned’s last regular-season home game as Ravenscroft’s head coach in October 2022.

“It’s special when you can do it as a family,” Cole said.

Football led to the Gonets sticking together off the field more often. Workouts led to similar friend groups, which led to more time together away from the gridiron. It went by in a blink, but Connor said he is thankful for the time he spent with his brother on the playing field.

“In the moment it was pretty surreal,” Connor said. “Looking back on it, even in my adulthood now, I can’t believe it really did happen.”

“Just enjoying it”

Pruden sisters encouraged, shaped one another in successful swim careers

Cathleen Pruden ’12 started swimming at Ravenscroft when she was in first grade.

As she remembers it today, she had pestered her mom about the opportunity to join Ravenscroft’s club team all through the summer before. Her mother, Caroline, told Cathleen she would let her join if she was still asking in the middle of the winter. Sure enough, January rolled around, and Cathleen was still asking, so her mother allowed her to join.

Naturally, when her time came years later, younger sister Mary ’18 followed suit.

“I did a lot of sports growing up,” Mary said. “Swim was always the one that was a little more serious.”

The Pruden sisters’ shared love of swimming has kept them close despite the difference in age, as this family photo from their early years together in a summer league shows; Cathleen, second from right, poses in 2012 with Coach Greg Warren and fellow members of the 400 Freestyle relay team, Chloe Mikles ’16, Madeline High ’17 and Claire Fuscoe ’14; Mary competes in a Ravenscroft swim meet during her record-setting career as a four-time state champion.

As it turned out, the sisters’ early involvement with the club program was the beginning of something great.

During Cathleen’s time at Ravenscroft, she was a four-time team MVP, a three-time TISAC All-Conference selection and the conference Swimmer of the Year in 2012. She was All-State in 2008 and competed for five NCISAA 3A State Championships. After Ravenscroft, she swam at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she was a Division III All-American.

Mary was an All-Conference performer her entire prep career and was a 2018 high school All-American in three events: 200 Free, 500 Free and 100 Backstroke. She won state titles in four events and set an NCISAA state record with her time of 1:48.79 in the 200 Free, becoming one of the school’s most-decorated swimmers at a time when the girls’ program won four back-to-back state championships (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016) . She went on to swim at Columbia University.

Swimming was in their blood, the sisters said. Their mother swam two years at Bucknell University, coached swimming at Ravenscroft and was the one who let Cathleen join the club team back when she was six.

Cathleen and Mary are five and half years apart in age, so they never swam together as varsity Ravens. While she was in college, Cathleen said, she returned to watch her sister break records held by swimmers she had followed around the pool growing up.

Mary Pruden, still wearing her mortar board from her 2018 graduation, poses proudly in front of the school’s record board for swimming; Cathleen, at left, and Mary prepare for a swim in Falls Lake as part of some family time during the COVID pandemic.

Mary said that, because the sisters swam the same events, Cathleen’s times were always in the back of her mind, but she never felt the pressure.

“We were separated enough that there was [really only] one summer that we practiced in the same group with our summer club team,” Mary said. “We never really trained together. I don’t think most people [at Ravenscroft] knew I had an older sibling who had been there.”

Cathleen is currently the head swimming and diving coach at Trinity University in San Antonio, where she’s coached 47 All-American performers. Mary is in graduate school at UNC Chapel-Hill.

Over the holidays, the Pruden sisters — whose father, Bill, is Director of Civic Engagement and a college counselor in the Upper School and whose brothers, Andrew ’16 and Jack ’23, were also Ravens athletes — were back under one roof for a few days, and memories of their days as student-athletes came up.

“I was telling my mom how weird, how nice, it was to know we don’t have to schedule going to the pool into our routine while we are on break,” Cathleen said. “That used to be the thing that owned us during this time of the year.”

Cathleen (second from right), now a collegiate swimming and diving head coach, is joined by Jack ’23, Mary and mother Caroline at the Division III NCAA Championships.

Mary said her biggest lesson from Cathleen was to keep it fun.

“Just enjoying it,” Mary said. “Her thing was just smiling before a race. It reminds you that you’re supposed to enjoy it. She was always very good at that. Learning that lesson earlier and having that for the whole time — it probably took her experience to learn it, but I had it the whole way through. That was helpful.”

Even though she is older, Cathleen said she learned so much from Mary, too. As she was heading into her senior year of college, Mary gave her a gift that made an impact on her career.

“It was a birthday present, a workout tracking book,” Cathleen said. “I [started] writing down every single practice, and I wish I had done it years earlier. I definitely wouldn’t have done it if Mary hadn’t gotten me the notebook. That's not a lesson, but it’s something that impacted my career and, going into coaching, gave me resources to look back on.”

“You find your own drive”

Riley brothers make names for themselves on golf range

Quinn Riley ’18 started playing golf almost the same time he started kindergarten.

He was five years old, going on trips with his mom and uncle. When his mom needed a babysitter during work hours, Quinn would tag along with his uncle, and the two often found their way onto a nearby golf course.

It’s no surprise that Quinn’s younger brother, Morgan ’25, took the same route, clinging to a golf club almost before he could walk on his own.

Quinn Riley, at right, holds a trophy with teammates Camryn Fletcher ’20, Chase Tickle ’18 and Britt Stroud ’19 after winning the N.C. Middle School Championships in 2013; Morgan Riley, at center, joins fellow Ravens Alex Miller ’24, second from left, and Andy Vitello ’25, at right, among the top-five winners of the U.S. Kids Golf Tournament in 2016.

The Riley brothers have been on a golf course for as long as they can remember, first playing in local tournaments, then bringing their skills to Ravenscroft and beyond. While both played multiple sports growing up, they found their passion on the links.

By the time he was in seventh grade, Quinn was already playing on Ravenscroft’s varsity golf team. His first “big-time” event was playing in the N.C. Middle School Championships, which the Ravens won in both 2013 and 2014.

“That was kind of my initiation to like, OK, I can do this and compete,” Quinn said.

He paid it forward when he saw Morgan, seven years his junior, take an interest.

Quinn Riley, a nationally competitive golfer, won the 2017 state golf championship with Coach Jimmy Cox and Ravenscroft teammates Ryan Gerard ’17, Kyle Kushnir ’21, Ben Lockhart ’17, Chase Tickle ’18, Lee Plummer ’20 and Kenan Poole ’19.

“Before he could really talk he was out on the range,” Quinn said. “He took to it and got really good as a five-year-old, winning state championships in U.S. Kids, while I was caddying for him. He did his own thing and learned to love it his own way.”

For Morgan at that age, it was simple: whatever Quinn did that was appealing or interesting, he was quick to get into it himself. Morgan played lacrosse, soccer and basketball, but golf was his best sport. Once he got to the age where he could play tournaments, he found what he called “the meaning to it”: there are winners and losers.

“That’s where I started to get competitive,” Morgan said. “That’s kind of where you find your own drive to keep playing the sport.”

Quinn caddies for Morgan during the August 2014 U.S. Kids World Championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina; Morgan returns the favor in November 2022, caddying for Quinn in the Asian Tour at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat, Morocco.

A five-time letter winner at Ravenscroft, Quinn won numerous national tournaments, including the North Carolina Trusted Choice Big I Championship and the CGA 50th N.C. Junior Boys Championship. He was a member of the 2017 NCISAA 3A state championship team and was named to The News & Observer 2017 All-Metro, 2017 NCISAA All-State and 2017 TISAC All-Conference. He won the individual TISAC Conference Championship twice and was the 2018 Conference Player of the Year.

He played at Duke University, leading the team in his first ACC Championship and earning his first individual win at the Stitch Intercollegiate his senior year. He turned pro after graduating in 2022.

Morgan has enjoyed marked success as well. At the age of 16, he was one of 80 First Tee members picked to play with pro golfers at the PURE Insurance Championship, pairing with PGA newcomer Tim O’Neal. In his recent seasons with Ravenscroft, he took All-Conference and All-State Honors in 2022, when the team placed third at the state-championship tournament, and was team MVP in both 2023 and 2024, when he won the individual TISAC Conference Championship. After he graduates in May, he’ll play for Harvard University.

Morgan Riley, shown in his 2023-24 season with the Ravens, is a two-time team MVP and TISAC individual conference champion.

Morgan said he hasn’t tried to chase Quinn’s record at Ravenscroft, as his older brother worked to create a different path for him.

“I was just trying to set a good example,” Quinn said. “Make good impressions with people so that when Morgan might step through the same footsteps, they know what to expect. They have a good idea of what’s to come. He’s watching me play professional golf, and I’m sure that’s rubbing off on what he wants to do after college. Everything I’m doing is kind of giving him a sneak peek, or a good or bad example of what professional golf is.”

The Riley brothers in September 2023 at Pebble Beach, where Morgan was competing in the PGA Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Quinn was competing in the APGA Tournament at Spyglass Hill Golf Course.

 

Two more notable sibling pairs

Melis ’10 and Layla ’13 Tanik - Tennis

The Tanik sisters shared a passion for excellence that helped shape Ravenscroft varsity tennis.

Melis Tanik Kelly ’10 was a four-time All-State and All-Conference standout at Ravenscroft, winning the 2008 state championship and earning MVP honors as part of the 2009 conference-championship team. She reached a career-high No. 1 state ranking, a regional rank among the Top 30 and a national standing in the Top 90 in the nation before enrolling at West Virginia University. After transferring to East Carolina University, she served as team captain in her senior year.

Layla Tanik ’13 was a three-time NCISAA 3A All-State and TISAC All-Conference selection. She was named the TISAC Conference Player of the Year in 2012. Alongside her sister, Layla was a key member of the Ravens’ 2008 NCISAA 3A State Championship team, playing both singles and doubles as an eighth-grader. She compiled an impressive winning record in three seasons at Wingate College. Today, she teaches Kindergarten in Ravenscroft’s Lower School.

“Playing on the team with Mel meant more than just winning matches,” Layla said. “It was about sisterhood, support and the bond we shared both on and off the court. No matter the score, I knew she was always in my corner. It was an unforgettable experience!”

Melis Tanik Kelly ’10 (at left, shown in the 2010 Corvus) and her sister Layla Tanik ’13 (at right, in the 2012 Corvus) were both tennis standouts in their time at Ravenscroft; in center photo, Layla is second from left and Melis is fifth from right in this team photo from the 2010 yearbook.

---

Wesley ’13 and Ryen ’15 Frazier - Track & Field

In spring 2024, both Frazier sisters joined the fifth class of the North Carolina High School Track & Field and Cross Country Hall of Fame in recognition of their astonishing accomplishments as high school athletes.

Read more about their records here at Ravenscroft and in their college careers in this story about their induction into our Sports Hall of Fame.

“These experiences taught me valuable lessons about leadership,” Wesley Frazier ’13 said of sharing a sport with her sister while at Ravenscroft. “I learned that true leadership often comes from supporting those around you, being a source of strength and fostering a shared sense of purpose — qualities that were cultivated in me from my time at Ravenscroft.”

Wesley Frazier ’13 (shown here in the 2012 Corvus) and her sister Ryen Frazier ’15 (in the 2015 Corvus) set the pace for Ravens runners today; Wesley and Ryen with former track & field coach Shon Hardy at their induction into the Ravenscroft Sports Hall of Fame in May 2024.