GENEVA, Ohio—Sophomore diver Danielle Scarano (New Windsor, N.Y.) won her first career BIG EAST title in the women's one-meter competition and junior Kelly Montesi (Greenwich, Conn.) added to her incredible list of accomplishments at the BIG EAST Championships with her 14^th career title overall and second straight in the 200 yard individual medley during competition at the SPIRE Institute on Thursday night. Villanova added a win in the 200 yard freestyle relay to close out Thursday's event schedule.
 
Thursday was a big one for the Wildcats, who recorded a total of eight top-three individual finishes to go along with the relay title. Villanova currently has 347 points in the team standings and leads second place Connecticut (276) and the rest of the six-team field. Friday's event schedule features the finals of five individual swimming events, the men's one-meter diving competition and the 400 yard medley relay.
 
Montesi is quickly becoming one of the most decorated swimmers in Villanova and BIG EAST history. She has won six career individual gold medals at the conference championships and been a part of eight champion relay teams. Add it all up and her current career accolades include 14 conference titles and 16 all-conference honors. She gets her next chance to add to those totals on Friday when she competes in the 400 yard individual medley.
 
In Thursday's competition Montesi cruised to a win in the 200 IM with a winning time of 2:00.90. She posted the fastest time during the preliminaries earlier in the day (2:02.03) and then pulled away in the final to win by just under 1.5 seconds. Senior teammate Rayann Jaryszak (Arlington, Texas) was the runner-up in 2:02.39 as the Wildcats packed the championship final with four of the eight qualifiers. Sophomore Kaitlin Gravell (Ashton, Md.) came in fourth with a time of 2:03.28 and freshman Audrey Pastorek (Savannah, Ga.) was fifth (2:04.54). Jaryszak has tallied four consecutive top-three finishes in the 200 IM during her career, including finishing second in each of the past three years.
 
"A lot of my success has to do with my teammates and my coaches," Montesi said. "Just knowing I've got people in my corner who I want to do my best for is what keeps me going. This year has been pretty crazy for all of us so I guess my mentality was just to approach it with a good attitude and try my best to have fun and be happy to be here, and it ended up working out."
 
The last event before the 200 free relay was the final of the women's one-meter diving competition. Scarano was the leader with a score of 242.90 after the preliminaries on Thursday afternoon and wound up winning her first BIG EAST gold medal with a score of 497.50 points combined between the preliminaries and the final. Junior Andrea Holtz (Rosemount, Minn.) finished fifth with a total score of 443.50 points.
 
Scarano came in sixth at the BIG EAST Championships on the one-meter board as a freshman last year before ascending to the top of the awards podium with Thursday's performance. She competed just once this season prior to the conference meet, coming in third on the one-meter board and winning on the three-meter board in a dual meet at Loyola (Md.) on March 13.
 
"It's really crazy. With the pandemic I didn't get to practice much over quarantine so the fact that I got to prove myself with the little time I had to practice is really incredible," Scarano said. "It is all about my mindset. If I have a bad dive I try to let it roll off my back and not let it affect me too much. My teammates are the absolute best. They pick me up when I'm down and they've helped me so much, especially the divers. They're my best friends and have helped me grow so much."
 
The third championship of the evening for Villanova came in the 200 free relay as the lineup of senior Milly Routledge (North Ascot, UK), sophomore Perri Stahl (La Grange, Ill.), freshman Lexi Elkovitch (New Albany, Ohio) and junior Abbey Berloco (Cranbury, N.J.) recorded a winning time of 1:32.49. Berloco swam the anchor leg of the relay in 22.61 and touched the wall nearly two full seconds ahead of Connecticut. This is the third straight relay that the Wildcats have won at least a share of the title in. Villanova tied Xavier in the 200 yard medley relay on Wednesday night and won the outright title in the 800 yard freestyle relay later that evening.
 
Villanova had four qualifiers for the championship final in the 500 yard freestyle, including junior Nicole Welch (Beverly, Mass.) and senior Emily Provenzo (Glen Allen, Va.) who each won medals. Welch came in second with a time of 4:50.06 in an exciting finish after she and the eventual champion from Connecticut pulled away from the rest of the field over the final 50 yards. Provenzo finished third in 4:54.61, while sophomore Brenna McLaughlin (Milford, Conn.) finished fourth (4:55.39) and senior Andrea Fong (Moorestown, N.J.) was eighth (5:04.60).
 
Berloco and Routledge were each medal winners in the 50 yard freestyle and Stahl notched a fourth place finish. The top four finishers were separated by just six-hundredths of a second in the quickest of the sprint races. Berloco came in second with a time of 23.38, followed by Routledge (23.39) in third place and Stahl (23.40).