Justin Greenway is making a steady recovery from anterior cruciate ligament surgery on his right knee.
Greenway tore his ACL during football season, but continued to play through the injury. After the football season ended, he had the surgery to repair his knee and has been recovering ever since.
Mitchell High School head track coach Geoff Gross said Greenway has been running for the past month, but because of his injury, he was limited to one event per meet.
On Friday, at the Sioux Falls O'Gorman Invitational, Greenway competed in multiple events for the first time this year. He ran the 100-meter dash, the 200 and the 400.
In the 100, Greenway took second place with a time of 11.48 seconds and also was second in the 200 with a time of 23.26 seconds and in the 400, Greenway placed fourth with a time of 53.35 seconds.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I'm starting to see a lot more improvements in my running, and it's starting to come together a lot faster now," Greenway said about competing in multiple events on Friday. "I don't think I'll quite be back to 100 percent, but I'm hoping to be in the 90-95 percent range."
Greenway is at the end of his rehabilitation process, but hasn't gotten all the strength back in his knee. He feels his right knee isn't as powerful as his left, and he's still working on getting that strength back.
Gross said with Greenway getting healthier, he's a strong candidate to run at the state meet later this month on some of the relay teams. He said that he hasn't made any final decisions about the lineups yet, but with Greenway getting stronger, there are more options.
Greenway is aiming to be in full health and ready to compete at the state meet.
"Realistically, I'm trying to come back and help our relay teams out," Greenway said. "I will most likely just do four different relays at state, but if I can come in and help out ... and compete individually and score some more team points, I will."
Greenway is expecting to qualify for the state in the 100, 200 and 400 in one of the Kernels' upcoming meets.
It's been hard to sit out most of the track season, Greenway said, but he's looking forward to competing at Augustana next year on the football and track and field teams.
"(It's been hard) not being able to compete at the level I was before and watching other people run, but it's been kind of nice because other people have stepped up and it's given them a chance to get a lot better," he said.
