VILLANOVA, Pa.—Junior high jumper
Roschell Clayton (Montego Bay, Jamaica) won the first BIG EAST title of her career with a season-best performance in the high jump and Villanova recorded four podium finishes on the final day of the 2023 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships presented by JEEP which concluded at Villanova Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Senior sprinter
Jane Livingston (Lancaster, Pa.) and freshman middle distance runner
Micah Trusty (Philadelphia, Pa.) won silver medals for the Wildcats in the 100 meter hurdles and the 800 meters, respectively. Villanova tallied a third place finish in the 4x800 meter relay later in the day.
Through three days of competition and 22 events that made up the meet program the Wildcats tallied a fourth place team finish with 108 points. Clayton, sophomore distance runner
Sadie Sigfstead (Edmonton, Alta.) and fifth year pole vaulter
Ashley Preston (Franklinville, N.J.) were event winners on the weekend and Villanova scored points in 14 different events in all. Sigfstead was the 10,000 meter champion on Thursday night when the meet opened, while Preston won her fourth career title in the pole vault on Friday afternoon.
In Saturday's action Clayton cleared the high jump bar at a height of 1.78 meters to emerge as the gold medalist from a field of 14 competitors. It is the fourth time during her collegiate career that Clayton has tallied a successful jump at 1.78 meters or higher. She earned her second career All-BIG EAST honor and her performance on Saturday will qualify her for the NCAA East Preliminary meet when selections are announced in the coming week.
Livingston scored in both the 100 meter hurdles and the 100 meter dash on Saturday after advancing out of the preliminary heats in each event a day earlier. She and Jailya Ash from Connecticut finished in a dead heat in the final of the hurdles, with a photo finish determining the slightest of margins – three thousandths of a second – in Ash's favor. Livingston later added a fifth place finish in the 100 meters with a time of 12.11. She is a five-time All-BIG EAST performer during her career and tallied both a personal best mark int the 100 meters (11.96) and a season-best time in the 100 meter hurdles (13.54) this weekend. Fifth year hurdler
Jada Thomas (Kingston, Jamaica) finished sixth with a time of 15.62 to give the Wildcats two scorers in the event.
A competitive final in the 800 meters saw the trio of Trusty, senior
Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio) and sophomore
Alex Stasichin (Massapequa, N.Y.) combine for 13 team points. Trusty was the runner-up in 2:05.71, Martinez placed fifth with a time of 2:05.88 and Stasichin was eighth with a time of 2:12.90. The first five runners across the finish line were separated by less than two-thirds of a second (0.61).
Stasichin later anchored Villanova to a third place finish and All-BIG EAST honors in the 4x800 meter relay. Sophomore
Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.) led off the race and was followed by senior
Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark), fifth year
Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) and Stasichin. The quartet combined for a time of 8:46.15 and the Wildcats finished on the awards podium in the 4x800 relay for the 69
th time (36 times indoors, 33 times outdoors) in its 40-year history of competing at the BIG EAST Championships.
Villanova finished fifth in the 4x400 meter relay and sixth in the 4x100 meter relay. The final event of the weekend was the 4x400 race in which freshman
Myonica Jackson (Bolingbrook, Ill.), Martinez, Trusty and senior
Alexis Martin (Gaithersburg, Md.) posted a time of 3:48.15. The race was run in two heats and Martin made a furious push over the final 150 meters to hold onto the Wildcats first place position in their section. Earlier in the afternoon Thomas, Jackson, Martin and junior
Caroline Carlson (Miami, Fla.) posted a time of 48.84 in the 4x100 relay.
Sophomore thrower
Faith Haught (Payson, Ariz.) had a strong performance in the discus and is a BIG EAST scorer for the first time in her career after tallying a fourth place finish. She threw for 40.84 meters and earned five team points to cap off a successful weekend. Haught began the meet by producing a personal best mark in the hammer on Thursday afternoon.
Villanova hosted the outdoor BIG EAST Championships for the first time in six years. The women's team champion was Connecticut with a score of 214.5 points, followed by St. John's (132.5), DePaul (123.5) and the Wildcats (108) who all scored over 100 points. The remainder of the team standings included Georgetown (94), Marquette (57.5), Butler (56), Providence (49) and Xavier (18).
