Complete Results | Villanova Results | Saturday Heat Sheets

VILLANOVA, Pa.--Senior thrower Caroline Hamilton (Nottingham, Pa.) defended her BIG EAST javelin title with the second-best throw of her career and Villanova had nine different athletes score points on the first day of the conference championships at Villanova Stadium on Friday afternoon. With six events scored, the Wildcats are in second place with 46 points going into Saturday's final day of action.

Hamilton won the javelin with a mark of 44.51 meters, trailing only her PR of 44.59 meters set at the Penn Relays last month. She was one of three Villanova scorers in the javelin and is a two-time champion one year after becoming the Wildcats first-ever women's javelin champion at the BIG EAST meet. Hamilton has posted top-three finishes in the javelin all four years of her collegiate career.

Fellow seniors Hannah Lee (Scituate, R.I.) and Veronica Scott (Plymouth, N.H.) also scored in the javelin with third and sixth place finishes, respectively. Lee recorded a personal best for the third time this season with her throw of 39.57 meters, while Scott tallied a mark of 36.34 meters. This is the second straight year that Lee was a top-three scorer in the event.

Villanova has four athletes score in the pole vault, including junior Bridget Owen (North Hampton, Mass.) who was the runner-up with a height of 3.71 meters. Sophomore Adeline Scelzi (Glen Allen, Va.), the BIG EAST indoor pole vault champion, matched the height of 3.71 meters to record a new personal best and finish third overall. Freshmen Jessica Lee (Kailua, Hawaii) and Ava Coleman (Southington, Conn.) came in fifth and eighth, with Lee clearing the bar at 3.56 meters and Coleman setting a new PR with a height of 3.41 meters.

Junior Marley Byrne (Auburn, Maine) competed in the long jump and recorded a sixth place finish with a mark of 5.39 meters. She will be back in action in the triple jump on Saturday afternoon.

In the lone scored running event that the Wildcats competed in on Friday, junior Alexandra Russo (Bellport, N.Y.) had an outstanding race in the 3000 meter steeplechase to come in fourth out of 10 runners. She crossed the finish line in 10:39.41 and lowered her previous personal best by more than 14 seconds. Her time in Friday's race puts her sixth on the all-time Villanova performance list.

Aside from the events which were scored on Friday, the Wildcats also qualified a dozen athletes for the final of their respective events. Junior Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Dublin, Ireland) and sophomore Nicole Hutchinson (West Vancouver, B.C.) are among them after they each won their preliminary heats of the 1500 meters. Cleirigh Buttner recorded a time of 4:28.25 and Hutchinson finished in 4:34.14 in Friday's prelims. Junior Nicole Armstrong (Sydenham, Ont.) advanced on time (4:35.06) to the final.

Fifth-year senior Angel Piccirillo (Homer City, Pa.) won her heat of the 800 meters in 2:12.55 to move on to the final in that event. Piccirillo is the meet record holder in the 800 meters with a time of 2:04.25 which she set two years ago. Junior Rebecca Del Rossi (Canton, N.Y.) and freshman Jacquelyn Smith (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.) also moved onto the final of the 800 meters. Their times on Friday were 2:12.91 and 2:15.29, respectively.

Scott, just minutes after competing in the javelin, crossed back across Lancaster Avenue from the Pike Field throwing areas and won her preliminary heat of the 400 meter hurdles. She is the defending champion in the event and recorded a time of 1:02.38 in her heat on Friday afternoon. Freshman Danielle Burns (Phoenix, Ariz.) came in second to Scott in the same heat, and advances to the final with a time of 1:03.16. Burns also came in third overall in the preliminaries of the 100 meter hurdles with a personal best time of 13.83. She is a qualifier for the final in both hurdle events.

Villanova will have three of the eight qualifiers for the final of the 400 meters. Freshman Amari Onque-Shabazz (Plainfield, N.J.) was third overall out of 14 entries in the prelims with a time of 56.38, while junior Sidney Hayes (Spring Grove, Pa.) and freshman McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) advanced with times of 56.52 and 56.86, respectively.

Saturday's action begins at 10 a.m. with the continuation of the heptathlon and decathlon. The first running event is the 4x100 meter relay at 1 p.m.