CHICAGO — In its 39th year of honoring the nation’s most elite high school athletes, Gatorade announced earlier this week that Hogan Denny of Mooresville High School is the 2023-24 Gatorade Indiana Baseball Player of the Year. Denny is the first Gatorade Indiana Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from Mooresville High School.
The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Denny as Indiana’s best high school baseball player.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.
The 6-foot, 185-pound senior catcher, right-handed pitcher and infielder led the Pioneers to a 30-3 record. Denny batted .473 with 38 RBI, 10 home runs, including a grand slam and scored 37 runs. He also compiled a 2-0 record with 10 saves on the mound, posting a 0.94 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 29.2 innings pitched.
Denny has volunteered locally on behalf of Champions of Character, a Mooresville High School student-athlete organization dedicated to instilling the values of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant-leadership on and off the field. He has also donated his time offering hitting instruction to youth baseball players. “Hogan is a game-changer for the Pioneers and the catalyst for their success in all aspects of the game,” said Sean Winkelseth, head coach at Decatur Central High School. “He’s a guy you circle (in the lineup) to prevent from beating you, if possible. Even with that, he finds a way to impact each game he’s in.”
Denny has maintained a 3.17 GPA in the classroom. He has signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball on scholarship at Indiana University this fall.
Denny joins recent Gatorade Indiana Baseball Players of the Year Max Clark (2022-23, 2021-22, & 2020-21, Franklin Community High School) and Ryan Lynch (2019-20, Penn High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
As part of Gatorade’s commitment to breaking down barriers in sport, every Player of the Year also receives a grant to donate to a social impact partner. To date, the Gatorade Player of the Year program has provided more than $4.9 million in grants to winners across more than 1,900 organizations.
