Hannah Runyon, Class of 2011 (Submitted Photo)

(The Norwich High School Sports Hall of Fame is happy to announce its 2025 induction ceremony will be held on Saturday, Oct. 11, where the 13th Hall of Fame class will be honored. Those being inducted in the 2025 class include athletes Hannah Runyon, Kyle Edwards, Michael Sutton, contributor Jim Wysor and the 1965 track & field team. This year’s event will be held at the Canasawacta Country Club, where a buffet dinner will commence at 5:30 p.m., followed by the induction ceremonies at approximately 6:30 p.m. Tickets to attend are $35 and can be purchased at the front desk of the Norwich YMCA or the Norwich High School by phoning 607-334-1600, Ext 1439.)

Hannah Runyon, Class of 2011:

Any story about Hannah Runyon’s athletics career at Norwich High School must begin with the abrupt end to her burgeoning junior season on the Purple Tornado’s varsity basketball team.

Through 10 games she was averaging over 17 points a game. The once preeminent Norwich girls’ basketball team; however, had been going through an uncharacteristic lull in recent seasons.

But to that point in the season, led by Hannah, Norwich was on the cusp of turning the corner.

On a typical January weeknight, Hannah and her teammates were battling division rival Johnson City. It was a nip-and-tuck contest, and late in the game, Hannah drove hard to the basket.

She was walloped on her jump shot attempt – it didn’t go in – and in the immediate aftermath, she was seen holding her shoulder in excruciating pain.

The coaching staff attended to her, and in most situations, the game would be over for any typical player.

Not so, for Hannah.

“Josh (Bennett, head coach) wanted to take me out,” Hannah said. “I said don’t you dare.”

Bennett also recalled that moment vividly. “I looked up at her father (in the stands) and said ‘I don’t think she’s okay,’” he said. “Hannah grabbed my chin and said, ‘if you take me out, I’ll never talk to you again.’”

With that, Hannah stayed in the game.

Hannah said she missed the first free throw attempt “by a landslide,” but nailed the second. The game went into overtime, and Bennett recalled Hannah playing the entire overtime with one useful arm, while scoring six more points as Norwich pulled out the crucial win.

That right shoulder injury, however, ended Hannah’s junior year. She suffered a torn right labrum in her shoulder. Hannah, who is now a Doctor of Physical Therapy, said it was a Hill-Sachs lesion. Sparing the clinical details, it was a really bad shoulder injury that would require surgery and months of rehabilitation. 

“In my head, I knew this might be the last time I would get to play (that season),” she said. “I fought as hard as I could to stay in. …Looking back at it now, I have a very different perspective. I empathize with that person from my junior year. That passion, the fire and the competitiveness.  That’s just an amazing place to exist. In my mind, I persevered through this crazy thing.”

Hannah averaged 17.4 points per game that season, which is the highest per game total of any player in Bennett’s long coaching tenure.

Coming off that horrific injury, all she did her senior year was post the second highest per game scoring total in Bennett’s coaching career – 17.0 points per game.

For her career, she scored 736 points with a final career average of 14.4 points per game along with nearly nine rebounds and five assists. She is a rare select group in Norwich girls’ basketball history to have started over 50 varsity games, and to finish with a career scoring average over 14 points per game.

The only other two players to have accomplished that feat for Norwich girls’ basketball are Norwich Sports Hall of Fame members Kelly James Huhtala and Johanna Schultz Dalton.

Hannah was the Southern Tier Athletic Conference’s scoring champion her senior year, she was fourth-team all-state, collected her third straight All-Chenango County honor, and was named a top 50 player in 2011 by the Basketball Coaches Association of New York.

She is also part of this year’s class of Norwich High School Sports Hall of Fame inductees.

Hannah’s varsity career started as a sophomore, and it was a slow build. By the second half of the season, she found her groove becoming a regular double figures scorer.

The second half of that sophomore season would define the outstanding shooter, passer, rebounder, and scorer that she would become over her final two varsity seasons.

The only thing lacking, though, was team success. Despite her ascendance as a focal point of the Tornado team, Norwich was just a .500 team her first two varsity seasons with zero postseason wins.

Certainly, there was anticipation and some anxiety heading into her final varsity season. She was coming off a serious season-ending injury that cut her junior season short.

“(My senior season) was extra rewarding because I was coming off that injury,” Hannah said.  “My perspective was different from other players. I didn’t know what to expect with my availability and capability. Going from playing all the time, to not play and shut things down for a long time. Most people enter knowing how they would perform, so I think it was something special that year and to have such a positive outcome.”

Hannah’s senior year marked a turning point for Norwich as it returned to elite status among the best teams in Section IV.

Norwich finished 15-5, won a playoff game, and was narrowly beaten in the Section IV finals by Maine-Endwell.

It would be the first of several sectional finals appearances for Norwich, under Bennett, over the next decade.

Given all the team success Norwich had after Hannah’s graduation, Bennett still points to Hannah as one of the best players during his tenure.

“She’s the best pure shooter I ever coached,” Bennett said. “When she had an open look, she almost never missed…she was also a great leader. And even though she scored more points per game in a season than anyone I coached, it never felt selfish. In fact, there were probably times we needed her to shoot more.”

Following high school, Hannah attended Nazareth College. She played four seasons on the women’s basketball team, and was a team captain her final three years.

She went on to earn her Doctor of Physical Therapy, met her future husband, Kevin – also a physical therapist – and is now the proud mom of her son Emerson.

“(The Hall of Fame) was and is a very meaningful honor,” Hannah said. “It comes from such an influential period of my life. To have it still be something that is recognized and celebrated at 32 years old. And now, having a son, it’s special that he will be a part of it.”