OPRF Students Enthusiastic, Well-Behaved at Super-Sectional

The Oak Park and River Forest High School boys' soccer team enjoyed a strong fan base for its Super-Sectional match on Tuesday evening. That outpouring of support included an enthusiastic--and well behaved--contingent of fellow students who made the nearly 40-mile journey to Barrington Community Field.

In order to attend, students needed to be accompanied by a parent. The students loudly cheered the Huskies on against the Fremd Vikings, with no apparent incidents of unsportsmanlike behavior. The Huskies lost, 1-0.

OPRF Coach Jason Fried said the strong turnout of not only students, but parents, coaches, and other members of the community helped create "a really cool atmosphere."

"It was a great mix of students, parents, and adults from the community who don't even have any players in the soccer program," Fried added. "It was a really awesome atmosphere."

The provision that students be accompanied by parents was communicated via e-mail to families of OPRF students on Monday evening.

"As we continue to evaluate our process of student admission to tomorrow’s game, we will be allowing OPRFHS students to attend the game with a parent/guardian," the statement read, in part. "This means students must be under the direct supervision of their parent/guardian the entire time. The parent/guardian will be responsible for assuring that no unsportsmanlike behaviors occur."

Last week, OPRF administrators had banned Huskie students from attending the Sectional final at New Trier. In a statement issued to OPRF families last Thursday, two days before the game, Athletic Director Nicole Ebsen cited a “pattern of unsportsmanlike behavior by various members of our student section and the extreme disrespect demonstrated at the conclusion of the sectional game this past Tuesday.”

“We were notified that any such further behavior would come with severe consequences to our team,” Ebsen added in the statement, “including the possibility of the IHSA removing the Huskies from the remainder of the soccer post-season.”

As the statement indicated, unruly and unsportsmanlike student behavior did not begin with the match against New Trier. The latest example had come during and after OPRF’s Regional final win over Niles West on October 22nd. Twice a cluster of students disrupted the game in the second half, prompting Fried to cross the pitch to urge them to settle down.

A few minutes after the Huskie win, a group of students vociferously taunted Niles West players from the other side of a stadium fence along Linden Avenue--before school security personnel dispersed the youths.

After the game, Fried said the referee had warned that the team may receive a yellow card as a result of the students’ unsportsmanlike behavior. The Illinois High School Association has set a limit on yellow cards, with suspensions and other penalties applied for various levels of violations.