UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.—Four of the six Villanova runners who competed at the Penn State National Open gained ground over the final kilometer and the Wildcats tallied a sixth place finish in a field of 18 teams on Friday morning. Fifth-year senior
Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) passed four runners down the stretch and led Villanova with a sixth place finish. She ran the 6,000 meter race on the Blue and White Golf Courses in 20:37.8.
This is the third straight race to begin the season and the 11
th time in her career that Olivere has paced the Wildcats lineup in a race. Her sixth place finish out of 168 runners on Friday was her top result of the year to date and came in her second career race on the Penn State course. The site will host the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional next month for the first time in four years.
Villanova's lineup in Friday's meet included Olivere along with sophomore
Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.), graduate
Ariana Gardizy (Lansdale, Pa.), junior
Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark), sophomore
Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) and first year
Kinsey Pogue (Danville, Calif.). The group combined for 179 points in the team standings and the Wildcats came in one spot ahead of nationally-ranked No. 15 Syracuse among other teams that made up the field.
Robinson moved up three positions over the final 1000 meters to tally a top-20 overall finish. She placed 18
th with a time of 21:06.8 and was second in the Villanova lineup, followed by Gardizy who came in 37
th with a time of 21:40.5. Helwigh was the biggest mover for the Wildcats down the stretch as she powered past nine runners in the last 1200 meters of the race. That kick put Helwigh 50
th overall with a time of 21:56.0 at the finish line. Carroll was the team's final scoring runner with a 73
rd place finish in 22:23.3, while Pogue crossed the line in 23:08.9 in her first collegiate 6K race.
Three of the top six teams in the standings on Friday were Mid-Atlantic Region squads. West Virginia came in first with 65 points and was followed by host Penn State in second place with 85 points. Northeastern (105), Georgia Tech (106), Columbia (121) and Villanova (179) rounded out the top six teams; Ceili McCabe from West Virginia came in first individually in 20:00.8.
This race was the Wildcats final tune-up before they begin preparing for the BIG EAST Championships later this month as well as the NCAA regional and national meets in November. The conference championships move to a new site this year and will be run at Highland Park in Attleboro, Mass. on October 29.
