Hankey Leads CMU To 7th-Place Finish At MAC Track & Field Championships

Saturday, May 14

Kalamazoo, Mich.

10 a.m.

Central Michigan University

Mid-American Conference Championships

CMU's 4x400-meter relay team -- Peyton Korytkowski (from left), Olivia Hankey, Taylor Korytkowski and Jericha Petrella -- placed second on Saturday at the MAC Championships.

Photo by: Keara Chaperon '22

Hankey Leads CMU To 7th-Place Finish At MAC Track & Field Championships

5/14/2022 6:17:00 PM | Track & Field

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By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Olivia Hankey wrapped up an outstanding weekend on Saturday in leading Central Michigan at the Mid-American Conference Track & Field Championships at Western Michigan's Kanley Track.

Hankey, a junior, placed second in three events – the heptathlon, the 400-meter hurdles and the 4x400-meter relay – in leading the Chippewas to a solid seventh-place finish in the 12-team field.

The Chippewas finished with 67 points, just five behind fifth-place Miami (Ohio). Every CMU scorer is eligible to return next season.

"Every single person fought really, really hard and everybody gave their all," CMU director of track & field/cross country Jenny Swieton said. "We've shown drastic improvement and I think we're ready to keep that momentum going. Obviously we want to finish higher, but I'm really proud of our women and what we did, and I feel like we're on the right path."

The Chippewas scored in seven events on Saturday, the final day of the three-day championships.

Hankey completed the heptathlon on Friday and on Saturday ran to a second-place finish in the 400 hurdles in 59.69 seconds and then anchored the Chippewas' 4x400 relay squad in the last event of the day.

Jericha Petrella, Taylor Korytkowski and Peyton Korytkowski joined Hankey in the relay. They finished second in 3:41.13. All four earned All-MAC honors for their second-place finish and Hankey is a triple All-MAC honoree with her second-place finishes in the 400 hurdles and the heptathlon.

"Olivia Hankey is the best example you could ever have of perseverance," Swieton said. "From the second she came onto the team, it was like she would do whatever she needed to do to contribute to the team. It took a little while for her to find her niche, but she has stuck with it and knew she could be really good at the heptathlon, and she wanted it. Obviously, that's showed."

Hankey finished eighth, scoring one team point, at the 2021 MAC Outdoor Championships in the heptathlon with 4429 points. She scored a career-high 5138 this year at Western. Her second-place finish garnered eight team points.

"Last year I think just scoring a point gave her a taste of what was possible," Swieton said. "But I don't know that at the end of last year I would have thought that Olivia is going to come in and get second place and score in the 400 hurdles and be in the relay. She believes in herself no matter what and she has such a good attitude when she goes into races.

"She's super competitive and it's not like she puts a lot of pressure on herself; she just goes and does it. She's a good example for anybody and everybody on our team."

Petrella placed fourth and Taylor Korytkowski was sixth in the 400-meter dash on Saturday. Petrella finished in 55.18 seconds; Korytkowski in 55.36.

The Chippewas' Reghan Draper placed fifth (11.80) in the 100-meter dash and Hayley Manners finished sixth in the triple jump at 12.60 meters (41 feet, 4 ¼ inches).

Taylor Korytkowski placed fifth in the 200-meter dash in 24.21 and also ran a leg on the Chippewas' 4x100-meter relay squad that finished fifth in 46.14 seconds.

Draper, Manners and Peyton Korytkowski joined Taylor Korytkowski in the relay.

Taylor Korytkowski, a redshirt freshman, scored in all four events in which she was entered.

"I think Taylor's definitely the most improved athlete on our team and I think this weekend was kind of like her coming-out party," Swieton said. "It was like, 'I'm here to stay.'

"She had an absolutely phenomenal weekend to make the final in both the 200 and the 400 and then the relays. They condensed the schedule because they were worried about storms and to do as well as she did – to run PRs – with less rest than what she would have otherwise had is phenomenal. Big, big weekend for her."

On the whole, Swieton said she was pleased with the collective performances of her student-athletes in the most important meet of the season. And, she added, the future looks extremely bright.

"There were some things that could have gone differently, but I'm really, really happy with where we're at," she said. "When things didn't go super well, we didn't let that carry on. They just were like, 'OK, we'll get it in the next race, or we'll get it in the next event.'

"I think they were really focused, and they wanted to show people that we're better than they think that we are. I think we had a great weekend.

"I told them that the last time I saw a team step up and get as fired up for each other as much as we did was at the MAC Outdoor in 2018 and it was in '19 that we won the championship. I think we're on the right path. We're making the right moves and we're building their team. We only have a few people left that were on that 2019 team so now this is these women building their team and doing it their way. It's cool to watch. They're taking ownership."