CINCINNATI — Tana Luckie has coached the varsity track team at Seven Hills since 1983. In all those years, she’s never seen any of her athletes accomplish what junior Mackenzie Hartman has this season.
Hartman is going for it this weekend in Westerville at the Division 3 state track and field meet. She’ll try to win medals in four separate events: the 100 and 300-meter hurdles, the 200-meter dash and the long jump, all over two days. She’s one dynamic athlete.
“(Competing in) three events is the most I’ve had,” Luckie said. “It’s very special.”
Especially so when one considers Hartman only picked up the sport because she’d pretty much played all the others – softball, cheer, volleyball. Track was always in her blood. It just took a while to fit it into her schedule.
“Softball was my main sport for a long time,” Hartman said. “My mom played softball in college. That was my thing. Seventh grade, I had nothing to do in the spring. My dad ran track, so, ‘Oh, I’ll run track.”
She now runs laps around the competition in Division 3. It’s home to the smallest enrollments in the state but Hartman can more than hold her own against the best.
Her time in her best event, the 100 hurdles, is better than any competitor in Division 2 and would be fourth among Division 1 opponents this season.
“Division 3, we’re pretty fast,” Hartman said.
Hartman’s height (Luckie jokes she’s 5-foot-4 with platform shoes on) doesn’t impede getting over 33-inch hurdles in the 100 or the 33-inch hurdles in the 300 meters.
“I’m the shortest one out there usually,” Hartman said.
She expects to stand tall on the podium multiple times.
"Hopefully win the 100 and 300 meters hurdles, and maybe making the finals or placing in the 200. And placing in the long jump – those are my goals,” Hartman said. “But definitely winning the 100 and the 300.”
