By Rich Chrampanis
RUMSON – Maddie and Lily Orr will tell you that the entire Rumson-Fair Haven girls track team is a sisterhood, but it’s the bond of these two sisters that made such a huge contribution to a dominant year for the Bulldogs track team. Separated by just a year (Maddie ready to graduate in the class of 2019 and Lily a junior), they are often thought of as twins, but their path to track greatness was quite different.
Lily was a lacrosse player on the powerful RFH girls team that has won seven straight Shore Conference championships. To get ready for the spring season, she joined the winter indoor track team primarily because her older sister Maddie was on the squad. When Lily came down with a case of mononucleosis in her sophomore year, it gave her time to reflect on where she really wanted to go with her athletic career.
“I had an a-ha moment when I was still sick my sophomore year and I was on the fence of whether to keep doing lacrosse or not,” Lily said. “I went to a spring track meet and I thought that it doesn’t seem so miserable. In the winter, it’s cold and you’re running in the bubble in Toms River so it’s a little bit less enjoyable. At the spring meet, it was warm and sunny and everyone was having a good time.”
Lily’s decision to focus solely on track catapulted her to one of the best in the state. In her first spring season she won three gold medals and a silver in the sectional finals, a gold and two silvers in the state finals and finished fourth in the state in the 400-meter dash at the Meet of Champions, along with a third-place effort anchoring RFH’s 4×400 meter relay team.
It would be really easy for there to be sibling rivalry, especially when younger sis becomes the star of the team, but it simply doesn’t exist.
“You would think I’m jealous, but I’m so happy for her. She’s not boasting about her success. Obviously, she’s really good, but she’s super humble about it and low key,” Maddie said. “It could be hard as being the sister of someone who is so good, but she’s always super encouraging. If I do something well, she’s the loudest one cheering on the sidelines, so I think it was super amazing for our last season together.”
The RFH track record books are filled with the Orr name. One of their favorite moments of 2019 was setting the 4×100 relay record with another pair of siblings, Chloe and Marlee Dotts – what they dubbed the “sister squad record.”
At the Meet of Champions, the Orrs got one last chance to run together in the 4×400 meter relay. Rumson was seeded 14th in the 20-team field. Maddie and Lily teamed with Campbell Devlin and Olivia Rehder to post a stunning school record time of 3:50.95 to vault all the way to third in New Jersey.
“Being in a relay with (Maddie) is so fun because it’s not an individual race,” Lily said. “Breaking a school record with Maddie was sick.”
The trio of seniors and Lily all ran personal best times and all four broke the one minute mark in their individual runs. Maddie was the leadoff with a time of 59.95 followed by Campbell Devlin’s 58.96, Olivia Rehder’s 57.36 and a blazing 54.68 time from Lily in the anchor spot.
“Right before, we said, ‘Let’s just run for each other,’ it’s three seniors and Lily,” Maddie said. “We all got PR’s (personal records).”
With Lily expecting to receive a lot of college interest throughout the summer and fall, Maddie is on her way to the University of Richmond. At first, she was ready to just be a student, but her outstanding senior season has her ready to run for the Spiders. “Richmond wasn’t a deciding factor for the track team, it was my top school academically,” Maddie said. “I was hurt for part of my junior year. Really this year, I got my times down a lot. I realized I can do this in college and be successful.”
Championships last forever. Maddie and Lily Orr will always have the memories of being a part of one of the most dominant teams in Rumson-Fair Haven history and knowing they truly brought out the best in each other. The strong sister bond is never going away, but now they’ll begin the next phase of their lives and have to be apart.
“The other night we had our track banquet,” Lily said. “When I talked about Maddie, I just started crying. Next year, I’m going to have to drive to practice by myself, go to school by myself.”
“We spend all day every day together,” Maddie said. “Throughout the season she was super encouraging to me. She knew that I could do something better than I had been doing.”
The Orr sisters are just one piece of a remarkable puzzle that made up one of the most dominant track programs in the state. The championships began indoors in the winter with the Shore Conference and a Group 2 state championship, followed in the spring with Rumson’s first outright Group 2 outdoor state title in program history.
The Bulldogs scored 60 points in the state final, all on the track and primarily in short distances, both individually and in the relay. Head coach Tim McLoone has been accustomed to having the Bulldogs shine in distance events, but the 2019 team shifted to being strong in short distances.
“My friend Bob Keogh coaches the sprinters and hurdlers,” McLoone said. “During the year, an opposing coach called us ‘Speed City.’ He wondered when did all these people from Rumson get so fast? They are the dominant part of the team.”
And “team” is the key word when it comes to Rumson’s enormous success this past school year. The list of contributors is long and when everyone on the roster was capable of getting points to help the team tally, RFH became a team that could not be matched from top to bottom.
“Lot of teams have stars,” McLoone said. “But they can’t defeat our depth.”
The Rumson-Fair Haven library gets a lot of extra traffic three times a year when it comes time for National Signing Day. The RFH athletic program consistently churns out student-athletes who compete at the next level. While football and basketball are front and center when it comes to attention, the RFH girls track team was the most successful in competition as well as in the classroom, leading the way with an average team GPA of 4.2. It is truly remarkable to see nine senior athletes from one team sign letters of intent. Just like their impressive times on the track, the list of seniors and their schools is quite impressive.
RFH GIRLS TRACK SENIORS MOVING ON TO COLLEGE
Alina Arko – Bucknell (field hockey)
Campbell Devlin – Tufts
Hailey Freeman – Monmouth
Annabel Morris – Colgate
Maddie Orr – Richmond
Kelan Swanzey – Gettysburg
Julia Tambaro – Bucknell
Carolyn Trent – Denison
Olivia Rehder – Boston College
