The Cinnaminson boys’ cross country team are two-time consecutive BCSL champions in the Liberty Division. History teacher Timothy Callinan, who has been coaching for over 10 years, explains what it means to be BCSL champions.

“Burlington County Scholastic League, our conference for the boys’ side, has two races: the Liberty Division and the Patriot Division. We are in the Liberty Division,” Coach Callinan said, “and we won that. We scored 18 points, which was the lowest point total in the meet’s history. The goal is to have the lowest points in cross-country, and so that made us the Liberty Division champs again.”

As returning champions, Coach Callinan said he believes that the team’s depth has helped them achieve the title once again, believing that the team has good runners and has completed one of their best scores of the season. 

“Our depth more than anything else, just because we’ve got some across the board, we’ve got pretty good runners, and one of the things that helps is that you really want to have a tight one through five-pack in terms of compression of time,” Callinan said. “And that was our best of the season – was down to 45 seconds from our first guy to our fifth guy because you have five guys at score, and then two guys who displace, or it could be tiebreakers. And they ran really well as well.”

At the end of this season, the team is losing only one senior, Jake Wickersham. While Coach Callinan credits Wickersham as the team’s top runner, he claims that the team’s unusual depth will help the team’s longevity and strength, even after Wickersham’s graduation.

“We only lose one senior, Jake Wickersham, who’s been our, granted, he’s our top runner and does take on a leadership role. It’s gonna be a big miss next year, but this group has got depth that we haven’t had in a long time, and hopefully they will all just continue to get stronger and fitter and as good as they are this year. I think they’ll actually be an even stronger team next year,” Callinan said. 

As it’s Wickersham’s last year running here at CHS, he said he believes that the program in years to come will continue to find success as the current juniors are doing a great job. 

“Most of the team is made up of juniors right now, and they’ve been killing it this season. So I know next year they’re gonna run great,” Wickersham said.

One of those juniors is Robert Flynn. According to him, he thinks the team is going to grow bigger, and he anticipates a possible win in the state championship next season. 

“The season so far has been really enjoyable, and the team has been growing larger and getting a lot faster and stronger. For the future of the program, I see us only getting bigger and better and possibly winning the state championship next season,” Flynn said.

Running can be described as tiring or therapeutic. Wickersham explains that running to him is about its physicality.

“For me, running is about seeing how much a human can endure before giving out,” Wickersham said.

At the end of the cross country season, some of the cross country team will move on to compete in winter track. Flynn competes in both of these sports and differentiates between each sport. Cross country and track share similarities, Flynn explains, in miles and seasons, such as when each sport is played, or what it consists of.

“Cross country is never run on a track for high school and college events like the 5k, 8k, and 10k that you run in high school and college, when done professionally, are mostly always run on a track to compare times more accurately,” Flynn said. “Usually, the shortest cross country race is a 5k, 3.1 miles, but for high school at the beginning of the season, we will run a couple of two-mile races.” 

As a senior, Wickersham’s next step is college, where he said he wants to continue his running career. 

“I’m planning on running in college. I’m kinda stuck between East Stroudsburg University and Rider,” Wickersham said.

According to Callinan, this season’s success compared to last season’s success is due to maturity, the number of juniors that help the team, and how this year is about taking advantage of all the levels of learning and training they’ve completed throughout the last couple of years. 

“They’re just a much more mature group in terms of their training. You know, we have a pretty core group of juniors, and so they’re freshman year was very much just kind of learning the sport and leaving space to go into last year, the kind of theme was growing into that space,” Calllinan said. “And then this year is about kind of taking advantage of all the work they’ve done the last couple of years and their level of fitness.”