VILLANOVA, Pa.—A team which will rely heavily on both returning top performers and a group of talented newcomers is set to open the 2019 season on Friday afternoon when Villanova competes in the Main Line Invitational at Haverford.  Entering their first meet of the season, the Wildcats are ranked No. 30 in this week's United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) national poll. 
 
The winningest team in the history of collegiate women's cross country – Villanova has won a record nine national championships with no other school winning the women's title more than five times – returns three All-BIG EAST performers and two Mid-Atlantic All-Region honorees from a year ago.  The all-conference trio includes senior Ann Campbell (Mission Hills, Kan.), sophomore Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) and sophomore Reilly Siebert (Syosset, N.Y.). 
 
Olivere tallied top-10 finishes at both the BIG EAST Championships and the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional as a freshman.  Her ninth place overall finish at the regional meet put her fourth in the Wildcats lineup as Villanova won the regional team title for the 15^th time to earn an automatic bid to the national championships.  It marked the fourth straight season and the 10^th time in the past 11 years that the Wildcats qualified for the NCAA meet.  Campbell was the team's third scoring runner at the NCAA Championships and notched her highest career finish at the meet.  She also notched a top-10 finish at the BIG EAST meet where Villanova incredibly placed six runners among the top eight overall finishers.
 
Last season was a strong freshman campaign for Siebert, who placed as high as fourth in the Wildcats lineup during the season and was one of the team's top seven runners in every meet during the year.  She came in 13^th at the BIG EAST Championships to earn second team all-conference honors, then followed that up with a 24^th place finish and a Mid-Atlantic All-Region medal at the NCAA regional meet.  Siebert placed sixth among the Villanova finishers at both the Mid-Atlantic Regional and the NCAA Championships.
 
The other three returning members of the Wildcats roster are seniors Kaleigh Hughes (Needham, Mass.), McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) and Amari Onque-Shabazz (Plainfield, N.J.).  Keegan and Onque-Shabazz are part of the Villanova middle distance group who have specialized in the 400 meters and the 800 meters on the track while also competing during cross country season.  Hughes is a fifth-year senior who was a regular member of the Wildcats lineup as a true freshman in 2015 and made strides on the track during the 2018-19 indoor and outdoor seasons.
 
Any team which has achieved a high level of success has done so by continually adding top talent to its program.  Villanova has done that in a big way entering 2019, with a group of five incoming freshmen who have already excelled during their competitive careers.  The class of newcomers includes Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark), Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio), Nikki Merrill (Portsmouth, R.I.), Maggie Smith (Halifax, N.S.) and Brynne Sumner (Canton, Ga.). 
 
Smith and Helwigh each competed in the U20 race at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark earlier this year.  A native of Canada, Smith was the U20 bronze medalist at the Canadian National Cross Country Championships with a time of 20:53.4 over 6000 meters.  She went on to place 66^th in her race at the world meet.  Helwigh ran in the world meet in her home country of Denmark and previously was a U20 gold medalist in 2016 and 2017 at the European Champion Clubs Cup (ECCC). 
 
Sumner was the Georgia state champion in 2018, part of a dominant senior season which earned her Atlanta All-Metro Cross Country Runner of the Year honors.  She was a five-time state champion overall in high school and graduated as one of the most decorated runners in Cherokee County history.  Merrill and Martinez will each join the Wildcats middle distance group and will have a chance to contribute to the team in both cross country and on the track.
 
Villanova will run a largely familiar schedule this season, with three regular season meets through the middle of October followed by the three postseason meets in November.  The season starts with the Main Line Invitational (Sept. 20) at Haverford and the Wildcats will next compete in the Paul Short Run (Oct. 5) at Lehigh.  The Goodman Campus Course at Lehigh also serves as the site of the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional later in the year. 
 
In mid-October, Villanova will run in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational (Oct. 18) on the Thomas Zimmerman Championship Cross Country Course which hosted last year's national championships.  From there, the Wildcats will head to the BIG EAST Championships (Nov. 2) and the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional (Nov. 15) with hopes of returning to the national meet which is one week later (Nov. 23) in Terre Haute, Ind.  The BIG EAST meet takes place at Wayne E. Dannehl National in Kenosha, Wis. for the second time in the last three years and the fourth time in the past 11 seasons.
 
Villanova has qualified for the NCAA Championships in 30 of the 38 years since the meet began in 1981.  In addition to their record nine national titles, the Wildcats have produced 56 cross country All-Americans.  The program has also won a record 16 BIG EAST titles and had a total of 136 All-BIG EAST and 78 Mid-Atlantic All-Region performers.