Courtesy photo Makenzie Wilkinson of Hollidaysburg participated in three sports at Johns Hopkins.

Makenzie Wilkinson’s personal plate has always been full.

And that’s the way that she likes things.

Wilkinson graduated this spring with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and attained a 3.44 grade-point average while participating in three sports. She was on the school’s women’s basketball and cross country teams all four years and would have made it four seasons on the track team as well — if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t wiped out the 2020 NCAA spring sports schedule across the country.

She also held a job in the school’s athletic department for the past three years, working to film athletic events and games for the university’s various sports programs.

“I’m definitely somebody who likes to keep going and keep doing,” said Wilkinson, a 2016 graduate of Hollidaysburg Area High School, where she participated in the same three sports for her entire varsity career and also served as a volunteer with the Mending Hearts Animal Rescue while graduating third in her class with a 99 average.

“When I got to college, I didn’t want to sacrifice any of the things that I enjoyed doing in high school, so I knew that (playing three sports) would be one of my goals in college,” Wilkinson said. “I don’t like sitting around and being idle too much.”

Wilkinson found the structure of her rigorous college schedule to be quite beneficial.

“It was definitely demanding, because I was constantly involved in a sports season. But it helped me to come up with a structure that I was able to stick to,” Wilkinson added. “It definitely helped me in terms of making sure that I was keeping a set schedule and doing the right things.”

Wilkinson’s limitless energy will certainly serve her well as she begins the next phase of her life. This fall, she’ll begin graduate studies at Johns Hopkins in pursuit of a doctorate degree in pediatric neuropsychology.

“I want to go into research especially concerning issues like traumatic brain injury (TBI) and developmental disabilities,” Wilkinson, 22, said. “It’s definitely a developing field. There is a lot that we don’t know about the brain, particularly in the early developmental years.

“There’s a lot of really cool research being done right now, particularly in the areas that I’m interested in, and I’ve always loved working with children,” Wilkinson added.

Wilkinson, who stands 5-foot-8, was a small forward on the Johns Hopkins women’s basketball team. She counts the program’s qualification for the NCAA Division III Tournament, and its two victories there in her junior year, as one of her biggest collegiate basketball thrills.

“Making it into the NCAA Tournament and winning two games there was an incredible experience,” Wilkinson said. “That was further than our team had gone for a really long time, and it was exciting to be a part of that.”

Wilkinson’s leadership was a big part of the team’s success, according to Johns Hopkins women’s basketball coach Katherine Bixby. The team won 23 games during Wilkinson’s junior year and 17 in her senior season, when Wilkinson — known affectionately as “Kenzie” or “Kenz” at Johns Hopkins — appeared in 25 games, averaged over 15 minutes a game and accomplished a career-high 11-rebound game against Washington College.

“She was by far our hardest worker and most consistent player,” Bixby said of Wilkinson. “She modeled that work ethic every day.

“When we went to the national tournament and won 23 games in her junior year, Kenz was a huge part of that. She was just so selfless. This past season, we had a really large first-year group, with seven freshmen. They were all impressed by her leadership, her poise and her work ethic. She was a true senior leader, and that was so important to our program.”

Shedrick Elliott, who serves as an assistant coach for both the Johns Hopkins men’s and women’s cross country and track teams, also said that Wilkinson’s poise and leadership was a vital asset to both women’s programs.

“Kenzie has been extremely mature in the four years that I’ve coached her, and that goes back to her freshman year,” Elliott said. “She’s a genuine leader by example. I think that she has a quiet confidence in herself, and her teammates feed off that.

“She’s extremely even-keel,” Elliott added. “She can handle highs and lows in a very mature way.”

Wilkinson made valuable contributions on the track and cross country course during her career at Johns Hopkins.

She had a hand in helping the women’s cross country team to three NCAA Division III team championships in her four years, and in track, she excelled in the 400-meter dash, 800 run and 3200 run.

She finished fifth in the Centennial Conference Championship Meet in the 3200 run in both her sophomore and junior years. During her freshman season, she was sixth in the 400 and third in the 3200 in the conference championship meet, and she placed 11th in the 800 run in the Hopkins/Loyola Invitational in her junior year.

“She certainly held her own,” Elliott said. “I never, ever would doubt that she gave her absolute best, and a lot of her teammates fed off her energy.”

In her high school days at Hollidaysburg, Wilkinson was a two-time participant in the PIAA Class 3A cross country meet and also made two appearances in the PIAA track and field meet, as a District 6 champion in the 400 dash in her senior year and as a member of the 1600 relay team in her sophomore year, when that relay team also set a girls school record in the event at the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

Wilkinson was also named the 2016 winner of the Lynnette Williams Spirit Award in basketball for exemplifying leadership, competitive drive and dignity on the court and achieving academic excellence in the classroom.

And after graduating college as a three-sport athlete, Wilkinson now has her share of admirers at Johns Hopkins.

“She thrived in the classroom and played three sports,” Bixby said. “I don’t know how she did it. She has a lot of self-discipline and internal drive, and she holds herself to such high standards but not in an unhealthy way.

“She’s been kind of the prototype of the student-athlete.”