Center Grove junior Griffin Hennessy is the Daily Journal Runner of the Year in boys cross country.
The sport Griffin Hennessy began playing as a 3-year-old includes its share of starts and stops.
A Center Grove junior, Hennessy competed in soccer for over a decade, but in time he sensed his skills as a distance runner carried the potential of opening more doors as he moved forward in his athletic career.
And so, when it came to life on the pitch, he stopped.
Hennessy, who pulled double duty as part of both the Trojans’ boys soccer and cross country teams as a freshman and sophomore, chose to leave the former in his rear-view mirror this past fall.
More doors indeed opened, and Hennessy is the Daily Journal’s Runner of the Year in boys cross country.
Hennessy, winner of the Franklin Regional, stood on the awards stage at the state meet in Terre Haute two weeks later after taking 15th. He credits his decision to scale back his sports workload, difficult as it was, for the improvement demonstrated this season.
Hennessy helped Center Grove finish sixth as a team at state, one year after the Trojans were fourth.
“It was one of the hardest decisions of my life. My parents left it totally up to me,” said Hennessy, whose former fall practice schedule was four days of soccer and joining cross country teammates on Wednesdays. “Once I got 33rd at state as a sophomore, I knew if I focused solely on cross country I would be able to reach my goal of top 20 at state.
“I was really happy with how my season went. I set the top 20 as a goal for myself, and I was 15th. I was hoping to get in there, maybe 18th or 19th, but knew I could do better if I ran my race.”
Center Grove’s state meet debut as a team in 2019 resulted in a 14th-place effort, though Hennessy didn’t factor in. A freshman at the time, he had torn a muscle in his right calf at practice following the Johnson County meet.
His improvement as a 10th-grader resulted in a regional runner-up finish and 14th at the Shelbyville semistate. This season, Hennessy was seventh at semistate, clocking a time of 15 minutes, 44.9 seconds — or nearly 20 seconds faster than at Blue River Park last year.
Center Grove coach Howard Harrell agrees that Hennessy’s full-time commitment to cross country translated into a camaraderie that was beneficial for both athlete and team.
“Griffin played JV soccer as a freshman and varsity as a sophomore, so he was obviously pretty good. But it was obvious to me and to others, too, that he was a good runner,” Harrell said. “From just doing one sport, he was able to come to more practices.
“Now that he was a full-time cross country runner this year, I think Griffin developed more as a runner. That last month of practice, the way he ran at state was exactly the way he was running (in practice). He peaked at the right time, for sure.”
