As a freshman, Mackenzie Magness didn’t let her youth keep her from making an impact.
The Freeport track and field standout went out and crashed the party, going after records and top finishes in multiple events. She soon was a WPIAL champion, hitting 11 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault to stand alone at the top of the podium.
Last year, the lights shone a little brighter, but Magness was up to the task. Several victories fueled her, and the desire to take gold again at WPIALs was just one of a number of motivating factors in her rise to higher successes.
Now, as a veteran of the high school grind, Magness shows no signs of letting down. Her goals haven’t changed while her desire to lead on and off the track and jumps runways gives her added motivation.
“I am just so confident right now,” Magness said. “I feel like it’s been going very well, and I am really excited to see how high I can go over the next couple weeks.”
Magness set the school pole vault record as a freshman, surpassing the previous mark with an 11-9 at Freeport’s WPIAL team semifinals.
She continued to better her record through the end of last year, producing a 12-4 in winning her second WPIAL crown followed by a 12-0 in capturing the PIAA championship at Shippensburg.
She hit 12-0 at the state indoor championships to place third overall and set the stage for this spring’s outdoor exploits.
The early-season work in practice and meets drove her to an all-time mark at Saturday’s Tri-State Track Coaches Association Championships at West Mifflin.
On her fourth run of the day, she hit 12-6 and finished first by 6 inches over Grove City junior Aleah Morgante and by a foot over North Allegheny senior Lindsay Brenaman (11-6). She was third at Tri-States last year at 10-7
Magness went for 12-9 but missed.
“I had to sprint over from long jump finals with no warmups,” said Magness, who had vaulted 12-1 at an early-season meet at Seneca Valley. “They were going to scratch me in pole vault. I had missed run throughs, so I just went for it. It was all or nothing. I cleared 11-6 and 12-0 on my first attempts and 12-6 on my second.
“It was kind of cold when we got there, so I was a little nervous. I was trying to stay warm. I was thinking it was going to be like every other year when it is freezing. But it started to get a lot warmer, and I felt a lot better when it was time to go. I just did what I needed to do. I was so excited because 12-6 is something I’ve been waiting for this season. It was a nice mark for me heading into the rest of the season”
And the long jump at Tri-States?
Magness hit 17-6 to earn a seventh-place medal. She recorded a personal best of 17-83⁄4 in taking fifth at the WPIALs last year.
The countdown to WPIALs is already on, and Magness said she’s excited for what the final month will bring for her and her teammates. The Yellow Jackets will test their collective mettle Saturday at the Butler Invitational.
“We’re all excited because there is so much more time to improve on all of our events,” said Magness, who will vault and do the long jump as well as run the 400 relay with junior Madison Sleppy, freshman Paige Cene and Maggie Conger and the 1,600 relay with Sleppy, Cene, and senior Pavana Bhat.
“They are all awesome, and it is exciting to see what we can do this year,” Magness said. “It is so different from individual events. You are out there doing it for your team. Everyone is counting on you, and you have to be accountable to everyone else to get to where you want to be.”
Magness sees 13 feet as an attainable vault goal before the season concludes.
“That is a big bar and one that a lot of vaulters strive for,” she said.
“Hopefully, it will be at one of those big meets. Even a 12-9, that is an awesome mark. Anything above 12 is really good for me.”
With her skills in a number of events, Magness went after a new venture in the offseason at the Women’s World Decathlon Championships in August at the Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
She fared well in her open (high school) division, placing first in the long jump, pole vault and 100-meter hurdles, second in the 400 dash and 1,500 run, fifth in the 100 dash and high jump, seventh in the discus, ninth in the shot put, and 10th in the javelin. It all added up to first place overall.
“I had no idea what I was going to do because half of those events I had never done before,” Magness said. “But it was a great challenge and a really good experience.”
Magness said it was a valuable opportunity to meet Lauren Kuntz, a specialist in the decathlon who also was a three-time Division III All-American in the pole vault at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kuntz is the world record holder in the double decathlon and the double heptathlon.
“I knew her from my vault coach,” she said. “He got me connected to her. She was like, ‘You have to do this.’ She’s an amazing decathlete who helped push the whole movement. It was really cool to get to talk to her. Having her get me involved was an awesome feeling. There were a lot of elite (college and professional) athletes at that event. They were competing at the same time, so I was able to watch them and cheer them on. It was cool to see that, and hopefully, I will one day be able to compete in that elite division.
“The whole point of the event was to get colleges to include the decathlon for women because now it is only available to men. I love this because, obviously, I would love to do that in college. Hopefully, it will come around by the time I am there.”