Dillard’s Coleman, Flanagan’s Henry are Broward Cross-Country Runners of the Year

After six years running for the Dillard girls’ cross country team, Christiana Coleman’s final season ended with both an individual and a team state title.

And while Shamar Henry may not have ended his high school career with gold, his individual improvement catapulted him to be among Broward County’s best.

Coleman and Henry are the Miami Herald’s Broward Cross-Country Runners of the Year.

Coleman won the Class 3A race with a time of 17:53.4. She was the only runner from Broward or Miami-Dade and one of just three runners overall to crack the 18-minute mark at state.

It was the latest — and final — dominant effort from one of Broward County’s most consistently top runners. She jumped onto the scene immediately as a seventh grader when she finished in 16th place in 2018. After that, she finished no worse than sixth place at state over the next five years.

The Dillard team followed suit as well, dominating the Class 3A field to win the school’s first state title in the sport. This comes after Dillard finished as state runner-up in 2022, fifth 2021 and third in 2019. The Panthers did not compete in the state series in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been fun seeing myself make progress and get better as the years have gone on,” Coleman said on the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) broadcast of the race. “We’ve been motivating each other more and we had a stronger team this year. We knew we had it.”

While Coleman impressed from the start, it took Henry a little bit to come into his own.

He finished 100th in Class 4A as a sophomore in 2021, running a time of 17:26.5 at the state meet. Two years later, he shaved almost two minutes off his time to finish fourth this season in Class 4A. His time of 15:35.4 at state was the 11th best among all runners, regardless of classification.

“I’ve been training a whole lot. I’ve been training hard,” Henry said. “To get 15:35 at state was a very big accomplishment for me. ... It was a great way to end my time as a high school cross country runner.