*McKinley Drennan winning The Opener (2022)
Photo credits: Christian Leach
On this week's edition of Future Stars, our featured athlete is Northwest Rankin's McKinley Drennan!
In the 2022 country season, she has had breakout performances on the Mississippi middle school girls' distance running scene. So far, she has dominated every race she has competed in and is comfortably undefeated.
She started her 2022 campaign with a victory at The Opener (2022), where she ran a 12:06 for 3k to get her season underway. In this race, Drennan progressed wildly from 2021 and PR'd by a considerable margin of over a minute and a half.
She followed that impressive performance with another win at the 2022 Northwest Rankin Cougar Invitational. She won in commanding fashion on a challenging course, running 12:42 over 3000m for a new course record.
Her most recent performance came from the 2022 Clinton Arrow Cross Country Invitational. Drennan ran a personal best of 12:02 in the 3000m, earning yet another victory by over 15 seconds.
With all that being said, Drennan has demonstrated that she is one of the state's most talented middle school runners. Momentum is on her side, and it will be exciting to see how she continues to progress over the season and into her high school career.
