GENEVA, Ohio—Junior diver Michael Ackert (Rye, N.Y.) won his first career conference title on Wednesday evening as he won the men's three-meter diving competition on the first night of the BIG EAST Championships. Ackert had a total score of 604.85 and Villanova is in first place in the team standings with one day down at the SPIRE Institute. In addition to the diving competition, the Wildcats also placed second in the 800 yard freestyle relay and third in the 200 yard medley relay on Wednesday.
 
Ackert was a four-time All-BIG EAST performer in the diving events through his first two collegiate seasons. He finished as the runner-up in both the one-meter and three-meter events to former teammate Michael Perra at the conference championships in both 2019 and 2020 before carrying on the team's winning tradition with the first BIG EAST gold medal of his own. The men's one-meter competition is slated for Friday evening.
 
"It's really special," Ackert said in a live interview during part of the streaming coverage of the BIG EAST Championships. "It's just taking it one dive at a time. That's what Coach Todd always tells us to do, just treat it like practice and don't do anything that you wouldn't do in practice. Just try to take it one step at a time."
 
Ackert was in the lead with a score of 283.95 following the preliminary round of the three-meter competition earlier Wednesday before securing the title during the finals. Freshman teammate Noah Clipman (Mohnton, Pa.) came in third with a score of 527.30. Ackert talked about being able to celebrate his individual title as a team accomplishment.
 
"This year we have really come together as one and tried to build our team culture, so to be able to give this win back to my team who supported me through the whole year is really awesome," Ackert said. "I would give them 10's, absolutely. 11's if I could. They're the best."
 
Competition on Wednesday evening closed with the 800 freestyle relay in which the Wildcats came in second with a time of 6:41.08. Villanova had a lineup of sophomore Reid Hutcherson (Richmond, Va.), sophomore Kevin Geist (Hilton Head Island, S.C.), freshman Charlie Hinckley (New York, N.Y.) and sophomore Jake McIntyre (Essex, Vt.) in the relay and came in less than 1.5 seconds behind Xavier in a close finish. A team from Seton Hall had initially touched the wall first before being disqualified.
 
In the first relay of the evening, the Wildcats lineup of freshman Ethan Brown (West Hartford, Conn.), senior JJ Strain (Greenwood Village, Colo.), senior Jordan Fetterman (Berkeley, Calif.) and graduate student Christopher Paynter (Hershey, Pa.) finished third in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:30.76.
 
Villanova has 102 points after the first day of competition and is followed by Providence (77 points), Xavier (74), Seton Hall (40) and Connecticut (17) going into a full day on Thursday.
 
The second day of competition at the conference meet features the 500 yard freestyle, the 200 yard individual medley, the 50 yard freestyle, women's one-meter diving and the 200 yard freestyle relay. Preliminaries get underway at 10 a.m. followed by finals beginning at 6 p.m.