Bright outlook for Oak Park-River Forest boys’ cross-country team

After advancing to Sectionals—as the team has done perennially for decades—the Oak Park and River Forest High School boys’ cross-country team wrapped up its season two weeks ago in Lincoln Park.

Though they placed in the bottom half of the 15-team field, grabbing the 10th spot, the Huskies’ outlook is as bright as the sunny skies that graced the picturesque scene just south of the Lincoln Park Zoo.

The biggest reason for optimism: of their top 10 runners, the Huskies return nine next year.

At the Sectional race, the sole senior, Eamon Cavanaugh, led the team with a time of 15:57 for the three-mile course. He came in 48th of the 119 runners in the field, which was split into four heats as part of pandemic precautions implemented by the Illinois High School Association.

The next two runners for OPRF were sophomores Liam Newhart (63rd) and Owen Augustine (64th). They clocked in .04 of a second apart, a shade below 16:14, and were followed by junior Lou Delano (68th) four seconds later.

Sophomore Brady O’Connor (81st, in 16:31) was the fifth OPRF runner and junior Leo Rooney (82nd, 16:32) was sixth, while junior Wes Morrison’s 16:46, 90th place, rounded out the OPRF athletes.

OPRF coach Chris Baldwin, in his sixth season as the Huskies’ coach, offered reflections on the season as well as his perspective on what the future may hold for the squad.

Q: How do you feel the team did as a whole this season?

A: We had a lot of kids make tremendous strides, racing under unique and difficult circumstances in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. This past summer, we had seven put in over 500 miles. As a team our season was a great success.

Our whole team, from the number-one runner to the number 65 runner, bought into working hard together. While we didn’t race on our typical courses, the boys ran PRs in our tempos and time trials and that was great to see.

They put their all into the team this season and at Sectional we were coming off our best race of the season—we finished second at Regionals a week before to advance to the Sectional. Overall, our team was disappointed in our Sectional race, but each Huskie put their all into it this season.

Q: What were some of the highlights of the season?

A: Eamon Cavanaugh was our number-one runner all season and earned All-Conference marks in the most challenging conference in the state—the West Suburban Conference is loaded with talent. Eamon has been our training leader since he was a sophomore and had an impressive season.

Lou Delano made huge strides from his sophomore year to be consistently in our top three. Liam Newhart raced as our number two for a lot of the season and had a strong conference and Regional meet, earning All-Regional recognition. In the top heat at Sectional, he got knocked down at the first turn and got back up. He competed strong, considering how those first 200 meters unfolded.

In terms of meets or races, I would say our Senior Night was a big moment for our team. We were able to honor our seniors as a whole team and had time trials at the Lake Street Field Track in small groups. We were split into training groups for the whole season so having the kids get to watch and cheer each other on in our 1600-meter or 800-meter time trials was awesome to see. It was a special night for our whole team. We ended up having 46 of the 52 kids who raced that night run a personal record.

Q: What do you anticipate for the 2021 season?

A: We are looking forward to next year as we are returning nine of our top 10 runners from this season. We hope the world is in a better place and that we will get more opportunities to race and be united as a team.

Many of the underclassmen have spoken of very lofty goals next season and we are excited to help them achieve those goals.

For the complete results of the Class 3A Sectional at Lincoln Park, hosted by Whitney Young High School, go to:

https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/180473/results