Field Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Kobe Bryant
Favorite team: The Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: My favorite memory competing in sports was when my team won the District title my sophomore year. It was a freezing cold weekday afternoon, and we were supposed to have off the next day. In the middle of overtime, a timeout was called, and my coach tried to pump us up by saying, “If you guys win, I will buy everyone Chipotle after this!” In a matter of minutes, we scored a goal, therefore earning a free Chipotle dinner, and of course a District Championship.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: There are so many moments to choose from, especially from just this year alone. To name a few: our dance jam sessions on the way back from games, the cone/ball winner announcements, certain girls dancing on corner plays in the middle of the game, and lastly, when one of my teammates wore her little eight-year-old brother’s soccer shorts to practice one day.
Music on your iPod: Ed Sheeran, Calvin Harris, Kid Ink, One Direction, and The Lumineers.
Future plans: I will be attending and playing field hockey at Providence College.
Words to live by: “Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.”
One goal before turning 30: By the time I am 30, I hope to have traveled/backpacked all across Europe.
One thing people don’t know about me: I was a very competitive gymnast up until the eighth grade.
By Mary Jane Souder
Corinne Kenney is a fearless competitor.
Don’t be fooled by her slight build, the Central Bucks South senior has been able to hold her own since the day she began playing competitive sports.
Picture, if you can, Kenney as a lanky youngster manning the sweeper position for her soccer team with the firm conviction that every 50-50 ball belonged to her. For the most part, they did.
Last year, when South played Conestoga in a non-league hockey contest, Kenney was assigned the task of marking 6-2, 165-pound Oliver Everts, the Pioneers’ male star from Amsterdam. Rumor has it that by the second half, Conestoga’s coach was complaining that Kenney was playing too rough.
It was, in fact, vintage Kenney, who has had plenty of practice standing up for herself as the youngest of three sisters. Both were tough acts to follow.
Eldest sibling Kiera, an elite gymnast, accepted a scholarship to George Washington University where she had a stellar gymnastics career, qualifying for NCAA Regionals three straight years.
Kayla, three years Corinne’s senior, received a field hockey scholarship to Villanova University where she earned All-BIG EAST first team honors this fall.
If it seems as though it might have been a daunting task to follow in their footsteps, guess again. Kenney never flinched, carving out a niche of her own.
This past week, she inked her name on a letter of intent to accept a field hockey scholarship to Providence University.
“I think in the back of my mind there’s always a little pressure, but I know that deep down – I truly wanted to play in college, so I was always going to work my hardest to get to that level,” Kenney said. “But I know if I really didn’t want to, my dad would be okay with that and be really supportive, but I always really wanted to, so there wasn’t a problem there.”
Kenney was a catalyst during a storybook season that saw a Titan team in transition capture the program’s eighth consecutive SOL conference crown and earn a trip to the district final and then the state semifinals. The unlikely journey began in July when Brittany Grzywacz took over the helm.
“We had a few running sessions over the summer, and I could tell the day I met Corinne that she was going to be a leader for the team,” the Titans’ first-year coach said. “And the same thing with Emily (Cliggett).
“Going into practice and our first days of tryouts, she had that leadership attitude. The way she plays – she plays with a lot of confidence and a lot of strength. I think that really adds to the leadership she has as well. You can tell when you look at her that she really knows what she’s doing.”
Kenney and Cliggett not only provided leadership as co-captains, they were a power pair at both ends of the field. Cliggett made the insert passes that ignited the Titans’ deadly corners with Kenney pulling the trigger on her patented laser shots, often taken so quickly the opposing team didn’t stand a chance.
“That was something we worked on – trying to reduce the time that once you receive the ball, one little touch and then a hard shot,” Grzywacz said. “It was almost our go-to – ‘Corinne, just shoot the ball hard.’ The majority of time that’s the way we’re going to get those goals.”
On defensive corners, Cliggett was the speedy flier while Kenney was the trail. The team’s five seniors provided the nucleus of a relatively inexperienced team.
“I think we all came into the season uncertain of the future,” Kenney said. “We didn’t know how great it was going to be.
“I think the seniors and coach Grzywacz – we took an average team that didn’t know where we were going to end up, and we really made something great out of everybody. Along the road, I think we shared the same vision of what we wanted to accomplish. Everybody stepped up to the plate this year – especially the returning players. We all took that leadership role. I’m very proud of every single girl on the team for what they accomplished this year.”
Led by seniors – and captains - who modeled the kind of leadership that propels teams to unexpected heights, the Titans became one of the state’s elite squads.
“I’ve noticed that Corinne’s tenacity and positive energy is contagious,” Kiera Kenney said. “The leadership she emulates on and off the field is refreshing, and people are not afraid to follow her lead. My college gymnastics coach emphasized to us that ‘life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.’
“This year Corinne and Emily could not have done a better job at staying humbled in their success and poised in their defeat. They set an amazing example for their team and set a precedent for CB South’s field hockey program.”
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Gymnastics was the sport of choice in the Kenney family while Corinne was growing up. All three sisters got their start in gymnastics, all three competed at a high level.
“That was definitely the foundation to all of our other sports,” Kenney said. “My mom and dad didn’t want us to just do gymnastics, so we got involved in swimming and soccer.”
But it was gymnastics that demanded hours of practice for the siblings, and weekends were spent traveling in the family mini van up and down the East Coast for competitions.
“At a young age, fear is not a factor in the sport of gymnastics,” Kiera said. “You learn to be brave and just do what your coaches tell you, even if the skill is unimaginable. Corinne defined fearlessness to a ‘t.’”
Kiera went on to recount a late night practice on the vault.
“The team was a reckless mess,” she recalled. “Honestly, we just wanted to get through the assignment and go home.
“Our coach was livid. He stormed down the runway to where we were waiting in line and screamed, ‘If you do something like that again, you will die, and it will hurt!’ The scolding was so ridiculous that Corinne and I just looked at each other in disbelief, and once he turned his back, we burst into laughter. His face was beet red, and steam should have been shooting out of his ears. It was hilarious.”
It was in gymnastics that the competitive drive in all three siblings was nurtured at an early age.
“Corinne has continued to build upon that quality,” Kiera said. “As our coach used to tell us, we were not only competitors but winners. We had the ‘Kenney eye.’
“Just by looking at us and into our eyes, he knew we could not be beat, and we would fight until the very end.”
Corinne took that competitive drive onto the hockey field, and it was that quiet determination to succeed that was at the heart of this year’s Titan squad.
“Corinne is one of the strongest and most determined people I know,” Kiera said. “She gives nothing less than 100 percent and strives to be the best in everything she does. The attitude she carries is exactly why she was so successful this season and why she is so successful in whatever she puts her mind to.”
Family support has been significant for Kenney, whose mother (Tricia Kenney) passed away In November of 2010. Her father, Pat, is a quiet source of strength with his presence on the sidelines and his unwavering support.
“That’s definitely meant a lot,” said Corinne. “Since I was little, he’s definitely very genuine about it, and he’s very caring and always so, so supportive.
“This year he would always send texts before every game – long paragraphs, some stuff about games, some stuff like I love to watch you play.”
Kenney, who has been playing hockey since seventh grade, will continue her career at Providence where she will major in economics with her sights set on becoming a lawyer. It’s an interest that was sparked in sixth grade during a law unit in the PEN enrichment program.
“I was the judge, and we had to figure out the whole case,” she said. “That definitely influenced me. I loved the whole unit.”
An excellent student, Kenney is a member of the National Honor Society and Key Club. She is enrolled in AP classes and is on track to earn a scholarship diploma.
And what would she like to be doing in 10 years?
“I could see myself working in NYC for a law firm that represents a finance company or for a major finance company in their law department,” Kenney said.
Whatever she may be doing, her family will be supporting her every step of the way.
“We love Corinne and are so, so proud of her accomplishments,” Kiera said.
