November 9 - As the cold winter months in western France transition to spring, Sen Kenneally can finally get outside to loosen his long 6-foot-7 frame up. With no one to play catch with, he rides his bike to a local park and tosses baseballs against a chain-linked fence.
In a country with a sports culture dominated by soccer, rugby and cycling, it's the only way the tall right-hander has to keep his throwing arm in shape.
While his teammates at Episcopal High School were in the midst of their Interstate Athletic Conference (IAC) schedule last spring, Kenneally was wrapping up a year-long study abroad program in Rennes, a 2,000-year-old city that was liberated by Gen. George Patton’s Army during World War II.
Unable to find a suitable club team to play for (French high schools don’t field sports teams), Kenneally focused on lifting weights six days a week, a regimen that enabled him to add 15 pounds of muscle. But not playing for nearly a year was not ideal for a Division I-level prospect in the midst of a key period in his development.
“It kind of got me in shape, but it wasn’t enough,” Kenneally said. “Not having anyone to throw with kind of set me back one, maybe two months.”
Kenneally stayed with a host family during his abroad program, using two prior years of studying the French language to help communicate with the locals. He now speaks the language fluently, and has gained a hankering for French bread.
Once he returned to Virginia this summer, he joined Episcopal for workouts and began playing with his Evoshield Canes travel team. Coaches from both teams noticed his velocity was way down, and it was determined that he needed to limit his throwing and work on mechanics.
This fall, the muscle memory and ability to repeat mechanics improved and he began to return to form. So much so, in fact, that the junior was offered a spot in the Class of 2018 recruiting class at Yale University.
“He did a lot of work on his own to get back to where he was, and to get even better from there,” Episcopal coach Chris Warren said. “In the five-month period [since June], he not only got back to where he was but bypassed it in terms of velocity.”
“The muscle memory finally clicked,” Kenneally said. “I was given a few mechanical adjustments and I went from throwing low-80s to mid-to-upper-80s in the span of about two weeks.”
Kenneally not only improved his velocity since returning from France, but developed a slider that he now considers his best pitch.
“I would kind of baby it and try and throw a get-me-over curveball,” Kenneally said. “Then this summer I tried to just throw it hard and it became basically a wipeout slider.”
This coming high school season, Kenneally wants to become more consistent. Yale coach John Stuper saw Kenneally pitch at a camp and noticed him make a few mental errors. Stuper told him afterwards he was too good to be making those mistakes.
“My big focus this spring is really just being focused throughout the entire game,” Kenneally said. “Not losing focus, even for one pitch, and filling up the zone with all my pitches.”
Warren, the former longtime W.T. Woodson coach who is in his third year at the Alexandria boarding school, feels Kenneally has all the intangibles to be a special player.
“When he’s on the mound, you have to pry him off,” Warren said. “He’s the kind of guy who wants the ball and wants to pitch in pressure situations and thrives on them.”
“He’s only scratched the surface of what he could be.”
Photo of Sen Kenneally courtesy of Episcopal baseball
