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GENEVA, Ohio - Junior thrower Jack Judge (Palisades, N.Y.) and redshirt freshman distance runner Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.) were individual champions on the first day of the 2018 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships presented by Jeep and Villanova sat in second place in the team standings at the close of competition on Friday evening. The first seven events of the 22-event meet program were scored during Friday's action.

Judge had the Wildcats biggest result of the day at the SPIRE Institute, where the BIG EAST meet is being held for the second time in the last three years. He won his first career conference title in the javelin with a personal best throw of 65.28 meters, launching himself into contention for a spot on the NCAA preliminary meet later this month. His throw is the eighth-longest by a Villanova athlete since the current javelin implement started to be used in 1999, and Judge now sits in third place on the Wildcats all-time performance list in the javelin. It is the third straight year he has tallied a top-three BIG EAST finish in the event.

In the first scored event on the track, Steele took first in the 3000 meter steeplechase with a winning time of 9:10.39. He pulled away late in the race from the Providence runner-up and crossed the finish line with a nearly three-second margin. This is only the third time in the history of the BIG EAST outdoor meet that the Wildcats have produced the men's steeplechase champion. Steele joins Gene Mitchell (1990) and Andrew Keino (2006) as Villanova runners who have captured a steeplechase title.

The victories by Judge and Steele accounted for 20 team points and the Wildcats finished Friday's action with a total of 62.5 points. Villanova scored in each of the seven events which were completed during the day. Among the highlights were the freshman duo of Ryan Tompkins (Farmingdale, N.J.) and Jacob Kelly (Longmeadow, Mass.) placing second and third in the high jump with identical marks of 1.96 meters. It is the first time since 1995 that the Wildcats have had two of the top three scorers in the high jump. The high jump was worth 17 points in all, with freshman Michael Troup (Doylestown, Pa.) and junior Michael Morrow (Danbury, Conn.) coming in seventh and eighth after clearing a height of 1.81 meters.

Other field events from Friday included the pole vault, the long jump and the hammer. Senior James Deutmeyer (Rye, N.Y.) made the podium in the pole vault with a third place finish (4.65m), while sophomore Thomas Conboy (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) came in sixth (4.45m). Freshman Vincent Sengelmann led a trio of Villanova finishers in the long jump with a mark of 6.70 meters to place fourth, while Troup was sixth (6.61m) and sophomore Steve Testa (Warminster, Pa.) eighth (6.56m). Sophomore thrower Jadyn Anczarski (Ringtown, Pa.) finished eighth in the hammer with a distance of 41.67 meters.

The preliminary heats of events on the track produced 12 qualifiers for the finals of those events on Saturday afternoon. Junior Sterling Pierce (Voorhees, N.J.) moved on to the final in both the 100 meters and the 200 meters, events which he swept the titles of as a freshman at the SPIRE venue two years ago. Junior sprinter Harry Purcell (Dublin, Ireland) had the top overall time in the preliminaries of the 400 meters with a time of 48.47, while freshman Amir Brock (Egg Harbor Twp., N.J.) and sophomore Dan Powers (Chadds Ford, Pa.) ran personal best times to advance in the 200 meters and the 400 meters, respectively.

Action resumes on Saturday with field events at 12 p.m. and running events at 1 p.m. Live coverage on BEDN begins at 12:55 p.m. and will continue through the conclusion of the meet and the awards ceremony which is set to begin at approximately 5:40 p.m.