PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Junior middle distance runners Maggie Smith (Halifax, N.S.) and Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark) along with graduate thrower Sade Meeks (North Babylon, N.Y.) tallied first place finishes at Franklin Field as Villanova opened the outdoor track & field season by competing in the Penn Challenge on Saturday afternoon. Warm weather for the meet made the day feel more like the middle of the outdoor season than the beginning and the Wildcats performances followed suit with a number of impressive results for this early in the year.
 
Villanova won three events and impacted the all-time program record book in four different events. Meeks won the shot put with a throw of 14.74 meters to record the third-longest outdoor throw in school history. She set the overall school record in the shot put during the indoor season and is the only athlete in program history to surpass 15 meters during her collegiate career. Meeks' winning mark of 14.74 meters on Saturday comes in at sixth overall on the Wildcats all-time top-10 performances in the shot put.
 
The throwing events took center stage for a time on Saturday as they were all contested earlier during the day at the Irving "Moon" Mondschein Throwing Complex before the running and other field events took place inside Franklin Field in the afternoon. Meeks and senior Emily Galvin (Pitman, N.J.) each recorded top-four finishes in the hammer with marks that rank in the top-10 in school history. Galvin finished third in Saturday's competition with a lifetime best mark of 52.36 meters, good for seventh on Villanova's list of top performances and 15 centimeters further than Galvin threw as a junior last season.
 
Meeks came in fourth on Saturday with a threw of 52.20 meters which slides in at No. 9 on the Wildcats all-time list. She slides into third place in school history in the hammer behind only Emily Galvin and school record holder Melinda Boykin (55.13m) whose record mark has stood since the 2001 season. Other strong performances for Villanova in the throws came from graduate Jul Thomson (Otterville, Ont.) and freshman Faith Haught (Payson, Ariz.) in the discus. Thomson came in fifth with a throw of 43.02 meters and Haught finished seventh with a mark of 41.63 meters in her collegiate debut. The latter mark puts Haught seventh in school history in the discus.
 
The top results for the Wildcats in the track events were the wins by Smith and Helwigh in the middle distance races. Smith won the 800 meters in 2:13.00 and Helwigh led a large contingent of Villanova runners in the 1500 meters with a winning time of 4:22.73. She just outkicked senior teammate Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) who posted a time of 4:22.77, while junior Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio) was third (4:30.08) and freshman Emma McGill (Lebanon, N.J.) finished fourth (4:31.07).  Freshman Maya Dorer (New York, N.Y.) was sixth in the 1500 meters (4:32.51) in addition to running the 400 meters (1:05.83) during the meet. Fellow first-year runner Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.) rounded out the team's results in the 1500 meters with a time of 4:36.67.
 
Junior sprinter Jane Livingston (Lancaster, Pa.) led four Wildcats in the 100 meters with a personal best time of 12.12. She moved into ninth place in school history in the event, with three active runners on the Villanova roster among the top 10 performers in the program record book. Livingston came in fourth out of 13 competitors in Saturday's race, with senior Trinity Hart (Scotch Plains, N.J.) placing sixth (12.28) followed by senior Jada Thomas (Kingston, Jamaica) seventh (12.30) and junior Alexis Martin (Gaithersburg, Md.) in 12^th place (12.72). Thomas is one of the other current Wildcats on the top 10 list in the 100 meters. Her personal best time of 12.17 set last season drops her to 10^th place with Livingston's result on Saturday.
 
During the coming week members of the Villanova roster will head to both the Texas Relays and the Raleigh Relays.