Sycamore community rallies as Spartan baseball team heads to state for first time in program history

SYCAMORE – The Sycamore High School baseball team was escorted out of town by Sycamore police, parents and community supporters Thursday as the team hits the road to play in the Class 3A State Tournament for the first time in program history on Friday.

Members of the Sycamore community gathered outside of Sycamore High School at 3:30 p.m. Thursday to rally around the history-making ball players, and send them off with as much support as possible. The roster this time around is made up of 14 seniors – who technically graduated last weekend but are looking to lead their team to a historic win.

Friday’s game will be the second semifinal meeting between Sycamore High School and Nazareth this year, after the Roadrunners landed a football win over the Spartans in the fall.

[ Baseball: Sycamore ready to take on Nazareth in first trip to state ]

Sycamore High School Dean of Students Nate Wright’s job means he’s predominately focused on building safety and student discipline. But on Thursday he said he wasn’t going to miss a chance to celebrate the accomplishments of student athletes he oversees.

“Oh this is awesome,” Wright said as he gathered with a crowd who bid farewell to the departing baseball team. “I mean, for any of these kids to have an opportunity to go down and experience something like this is great. We’ve had a great year, a lot of teams had an opportunity to make deep playoff runs, and for [Sycamore coach Jason] Cavanaugh and these guys to get down to state for the first time in coach’s career is awesome.”

“An awesome turnout from parents and fans here in Sycamore, I’m just really excited for the team.”

—  Sycamore Community School District 427 Superintendent Steve Wilder

Sycamore High School Principal Tim Carlson – a former Sycamore basketball coach and athletic director – presided over his final Sycamore graduation last month, but the Sycamore Baseball team’s winning ways gave him at least one more public function to attend in his final weeks as principal.

“I was here when Jason [Cavanaugh] got hired, and Jason’s worked very hard for 20 some years as the head coach. He got put in the [Illinois High School Baseball Association Coaches Hall of Fame] this last winter. I’m really proud of him and its deserving for the efforts that he’s put in, because he’s put the time in,” Carlson said. “I texted him when he won that I was proud of him and proud of the team, but happy because I know he had put in the 20 some years of effort to continue to grow and develop a program when it’s not always easy to do. And you don’t see coaches staying around to do that anymore.”

Cavanaugh began his work with the Sycamore baseball team in 1995 as coach of the freshmen team. Since 1998, he’s been the high school’s head baseball coach. With more than 24 years of experience, Cavanaugh said he understands high school sports can be cyclical.

“This has been a four-year process, when these kids came into high school there was no freshmen season for them, and then their sophomore year was kind of overlapped with football ... so that was certainly a strange situation. And then their junior year we started to really put it all together,” Cavanaugh said.

Dozens of Sycamore baseball supporters came out to support the baseball team as the players leave town. Cavanaugh said he think’s the Sycamore community is “fantastic when it comes to supporting our athletic programs.”

Sycamore Community School District 427 Superintendent Steve Wilder was one of a handful of district officials who attended the team sendoff. He said he’s excited the baseball team will make history by playing in the state tournament for the first time ever.

“An awesome turnout from parents and fans here in Sycamore, I’m just really excited for the team,” Wilder said.

Sycamore Athletic Director Chauncey Carrick expressed a similar sentiment at the pep rally.

“It’s just a great group of kids. They like being around each other, they play hard together, it’s just a great group. And as you can see our community is going to rally around him,” Carrick said.

Carrick said the players on the team are standouts, but Cavanaugh has had great teams in the past and will have great teams again in the future – sometimes a little bit of luck is all it takes for a great post-season run in baseball.

The idea behind the Thursday sendoff was to inspire as much confidence in the players as possible before they play Nazareth at noon Friday in a semifinal at Duly Health and Care Field in Joliet.

“I think our community and our families are fantastic when it comes to supporting our athletic programs,” Cavanaugh said. “I think this is a wonderful sendoff that we have for our kids, that all these parents and the just community members here and fans who have been following from afar are all here. I’ve got a thousand text messages from former players and people I know in the community who are following along, so we’re expecting a great crowd tomorrow there tomorrow at noon.”

Here is everything you need to know ahead of Sycamore’s Friday noon semifinal game against Nazareth Academy in Joilet.