Patriots’ Hennessy had unparalleled pitching career
Named the
News Transcript 2002 Athlete of the Year
By tim morris
Staff Writer

JERRY WOLKOWITZ Freehold Township’s Meagan Hennessy was the top scholastic performer in the area this year, capping off a remarkable career with one of the best seasons in District history.

The numbers are staggering enough: just one earned run allowed during an entire softball season of 146 innings, an unfathomable earned run average of 0.05 in pitching and 230 strikeouts to go with it.

Those numbers alone don’t do justice to the New Transcript’s 2002 senior Athlete of the Year: Freehold Township’s Meagan Hennessy.

Freehold Township softball will be judged pre-Hennessy and post-Hennessy. That’s how much she elevated the program. With her, the Patriots scaled heights that didn’t seem attainable before. In the last three years, the Patriots were 69-17 (50-7 the last two) while winning the Lady Buc Tournament (Monmouth County championship), Shore Conference A North Division crown and two Manalapan invitationals and advancing to the finals of the Central Jersey Group IV playoffs. This was from a program whose finest senior prior to the arrival of the all-state sensation had been 16-10. This year, Township was 26-3 and enjoyed a record 26-game winning streak. Hennessy won a school-record 18 games, going 18-3.

It would be very simple to point to the fact that Hennessy can throw five pitches (change-up, fastball, riser, curve and drop) for strikes at any time in the count and attribute her success to that fact alone. While her pitching capabilities are important, that alone isn’t what made Hennessy the most accomplished pitcher in the history of the Freehold Regional District.

JERRY WOLKOWITZ Hennessy’s dominance on the pitching mound was the key to the emergence of the Freehold Township softball program over the last two seasons.

Beneath that cool, calm and collected demeanor on the mound, she has the look that coach John DeVincenzo calls her "poker face" which exudes confidence.

"I hate to lose," said Hennessy. "I can’t stand giving up a hit or a run. When someone gets to third base, I say, ‘That’s as far as you go.’

"I hate it when someone scores, and that’s why I pitched so well this year. I didn’t want to give up runs," she said.

DeVincenzo witnessed that drive from the get-go.

"It’s her competitive nature, her will to win that separates her from other pitchers," he said. "She has that spirit that says, ‘You’re not going to beat me.’

"All the top pitchers don’t have that." he added. "She has an inner confidence and drive. She’s always had that spirit. She’s a natural leader, and the girls look up to her. I knew when she was a freshman that she would be special."

Just how special, DeVincenzo admitted, he couldn’t have predicted.

"She set records that won’t be surpassed," he noted. "You won’t see a .05 earned run average."

Hennessy, who will be pitching for Moravian (Pa.) College starting in the fall, owns the Patriot pitching record book with such career marks as wins (60), earned run average (0.76), strikeouts (772) and single-season records for all three with 18 wins, 230 strikeouts and that paltry 0.05 ERA. No Township pitcher had ever pitched a no-hitter until Hennessy, and she authored six during her career, including two perfect games. This year she faced 532 batters and allowed only 59 hits. She took hits against her personally.

Hennessy’s trip to the Patriots’ record book began at age 7 in T-ball. She was following in the footsteps of her sister Erin, who played second base for the Pats (the two were teammates for a year at Freehold Township when Erin was a senior and Meagan a freshman).

"I started playing softball because my older sister, Erin, was playing," Hennessy recalled. "I wanted to be like her."

Because Erin was pitching at that time, Meagan again followed in her footsteps.

"I started windmilling in fifth grade, and I said, ‘This is fun,’" she explained. "It takes practice and good mechanics. I did a lot of pitching drills. The key is to have movement on the ball."

Hennessy quickly picked up the art of windmill fast-pitching, and in sixth grade she was playing with the travel team the Shore Magic. She would set records at the Barkalow School that would portend things to come in high school. Each year, she noted, she kept adding a pitch to her arsenal. It was the riser that she worked on the last couple of seasons, and it became a devastating strike-out pitch for her.

Her father, Mike Hennessy, a softball coach, has been a big help to his daughter, but perhaps his best coaching was his advice to her about her demeanor on the mound.

"My dad told me not to be emotional when I’m pitching," she said. "It’s so true. If I’m upset about something, I’m not focused on my pitching."

It’s that laser-like focus that made Hennessy so difficult for teams to score against, even when she got into a jam.

"When you’re in trouble, you have to make sure that your pitches move and really focus on what you’re throwing," she said. "You have to concentrate on every pitch."

The 5-2 Hennessy is not your prototypical softball pitcher, but what she may lack in the size and the power of other pitchers, she makes up for in her ability to be a pitcher and not a thrower.

"Pitching is about mixing it up and keeping hitters off balance," she said. "A batter’s stance matters. I look for where they hold the bat. I try to out-think them."

DeVincenzo pointed to Hennessy’s smarts on the mound as one of her unsung attributes.

"She is such an intelligent player," he said. "She knows the game so well."

Hennessy’s knowledge of the game makes her effective at the plate. Lost in her gaudy pitching stats is the fact that she led Freehold Township in batting average the last three years. As the lead-off hitter, her job was to get on base, and that she did to the tune of a .394 batting average and .510 on-base percentage for 2002 that produced a team-high 25 runs scored.

"She would have had a great career without being a pitcher," DeVincenzo said.

Hennessy said that, as a pitcher, when she is batting, she looks for the spin of the ball, which tells her what the pitch is going to be.

Hennessy got to show her competitiveness in a second sport as the goalie on the Pats’ field hockey team. She played it well-enough to be named all-district. It started off as a way to stay in shape for softball, but that competitive drive made her one of the most aggressive goalies in the Shore as she would do whatever she could to keep a team from scoring.

Although the 2002 season ended with three dispiriting losses, it was the finest season ever in school history and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The Pats ranked as high as second in the state and were 26-0. It was a senior-dominated team of players who had been together since grade school and who shared the same commitment to team success.

"The team was built on our friendship," said Hennessy. "The team helped my pitching this year. I was able to relax because I knew they would make plays."

The team relaxed with Hennessy on the mound because they knew that, with her, they were competitive with any team in the state.

"I would still have liked to have won the states," Hennessy said of her one high school regret.

Hennessy is spending the summer pitching and playing outfield for the Morris County Belles, coached by her father. She is looking forward to her next challenge, college softball.

"I’m really excited about going to Moravian," she said. "They have a competitive team, which is what I wanted. I’m happy with that and want to get started."