GENEVA, Ohio—Sophomore pole vaulter Ashley Preston (Franklinville, N.J.) won her third career BIG EAST pole vault title and second in a row indoors to highlight a strong opening day of competition for Villanova at the conference championships on Sunday afternoon.  Preston recorded a lifetime best mark of 4.05 meters at SPIRE Institute and the Wildcats currently sit in second place in the team standings with the majority of events to be scored Monday on the second and final day of the meet. 
 
Sunday's meet program featured six scored events out of the 20 that make up the championship.  Villanova had awards podium finishes (top-three in each event) in the pole vault, the pentathlon and the distance medley relay to finish day one with 42 points.  Preston and junior Amanda McNelis (Commack, N.Y.) placed first and third in the pole vault, while sophomore multi-event athlete Liv Morgan (Bronx, N.Y.) was the runner-up in the pentathlon. 
 
The all-freshman distance medley relay squad of Brynne Sumner (Canton, Ga.), Alexis Martin (Gaithersburg, Md.), Nikki Merrill (Portsmouth, R.I.) and Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark) finished second with a time of 11:43.53.  They were less than two seconds off the winning pace and the Wildcats tallied a top-three finish in the DMR for the fifth straight year and the 32^nd time in the 38-year history of the women's conference meet. 
 
Below is a roundup of each of Sunday's events. 
 
POLE VAULT
 
Preston cleared the bar at 4.05 meters and improved her lifetime best by three centimeters.  She was one of four competitors in the field of 10 athletes who remained in the competition when the bar was raised t 3.95 meters.  Preston was the only one of the four to clear that height and already had the BIG EAST title in hand when the bar was raised to 4.05 meters.  She succeeded on her second try, then kept going before missing on three attempts at 4.10 meters. 
 
The height of 4.05 meters ties the seventh-best performance in Villanova history and is the third-highest that any Wildcats athlete has jumped indoors.  Preston has been the BIG EAST pole vault champion at each of the three conference championships she has competed in, including the last two indoor meets and last year's outdoor meet. 
 
McNelis recorded a new indoor personal best with a height of 3.85 meters on the day.  She surpassed the mark of 3.83 meters she recorded earlier this season and moved up a spot to tie for fifth on the Wildcats all-time indoor performance list.  McNelis earned her spot on the awards podium by virtue of having fewer misses at 3.85 meters than an athlete from Marquette who came in fourth.  McNelis earned her third career All-BIG EAST honor and second indoors. 
 
Juniors Cala Lejman (Ambler, Pa.) and Samantha Bragen (Toms River, N.J.) placed sixth and ninth, respectively.  Lejman made it over the bar at 3.50 meters and was successful on two of her first three attempts of the day before going out with the bar at 3.65 meters.  Bragen came into the meet at the opening height of 2.90 meters and cleared that height as well as 3.05 meters. 
 
PENTATHLON
 
Morgan gave Villanova an early highlight to the meet with her second place finish in the pentathlon.  She scored 3,588 points, a total which is 33 points higher than what she scored when she won the pentathlon as a freshman last season.  In a stronger overall field this time around, Morgan got off to a fast start by recording personal best marks in both the 60 meter hurdles and the high jump.  She ran the hurdles in 8.89 and then cleared the bar at 1.56 meters in the high jump. 
 
After sitting in fourth place out of eight competitors through the first two events, Morgan moved up to third after the shot put and into second place following the long jump.  She threw for 11.13 meters in the shot put, recorded a long jump of 5.26 meters and then closed the competition by posting a time of 2:26.99 in the 800 meters.  In between the long jump and the 800 meters, Morgan was back on the track for the preliminary heats of the 60 meter hurdles and qualified for the final.  She will be in action in both the hurdles and the high jump on Monday.
 
DISTANCE MEDLEY RELAY
 
There have been few events that the Wildcats have had more success in over the years than the distance medley relay, which traditionally closes the first day of competition at the conference meet.  Villanova not only had four true freshmen running in the relay, but three of the four had qualified for the final of their respective individual events earlier in the day. 
 
Sumner led off the DMR with the 1200 meter leg and Helwigh anchored the race for the final 1600 meters.  They were each automatic qualifiers for the final of the Mile earlier in the day.  Merrill won her heat of the 800 meters to advance to Monday's final before returning to the track to run the 800 meter leg of the relay.  Martin was the lone fresh competitor of the four and took the 400 meter leg.  She is likely to be back in action on Monday for the 4x400 relay. 
 
In the 38 years of the women's BIG EAST Championships, the Wildcats have tallied 17 victories, 11 runner-up finishes and four third place finishes in the distance medley relay. 
 
5000 METERS
 
In the lone individual running event to be scored on Sunday, sophomore Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) recorded a fourth place finish with a time of 16:26.08.  Olivere was competing int the 5K for the first time as a collegian and she made up significant ground approaching the finish line to nearly nip the third-place runner at the line.  Olivere will be back on the track for the 3000 meters on Monday afternoon. 
 
LONG JUMP
 
Sophomore Trinity Hart (Scotch Plains, N.J.) led three Villanova competitors with a season-best mark of 5.23 meters.  She came in seventh overall to score two team points while freshman Faith Robinson (Saint Louis Park, Minn.) and junior Jennifer Barbour (Middletown, Conn.) came in ninth and 11th, respectively.  Robinson measured a jump of 5.16 meters and Barbour was close behind her with a mark of 5.14 meters.
 
WEIGHT THROW
 
Sophomore thrower Emily Galvin (Pitman, N.J.) had a strong showing with a mark of 13.67 meters for the day.  That was more than a meter further than her previous personal best and put her onto the Wildcats all-time performance list in the weight throw.  Her effort on Sunday in the first field event of the day to be contested places her seventh among the program's top all-time performers.
 
PRELIMINARY HEATS
 
Villanova had 10 athletes advance to the final of their respective events during the qualifying rounds on Sunday afternoon.  Senior sprinter Trudy-Ann Williamson (Kingston, Jamaica) blew away the field in the 60 meters to the tune of a sizzling time of 7.41.  It is the second straight race that Williamson has run 7.41, with Sunday's effort matching her time from the final heat at the FastTrack National Invitational last month.  Williamson is the school record holder in the 60 meters and owns the 19 fastest times in school history in the event. 
 
In addition to being the top qualifier in the 60 meters, Williamson registered a personal best time of 23.93 in the heats of the 200 meters.  She is only the second athlete in program history to break 24 seconds indoors in the 200 meters, and her time was just eight-hundredths of a second off the indoor school record of 2385 held by Shericka Ward.  Williamson is going for a repeat double of the 60 meter and 200 meter titles which she won last season. 
 
Sophomore Jada Thomas (Kingston, Jamaica) and junior Sarah Jones (Sewell, N.J.) were the top two qualifiers for the final of the 60 meter hurdles.  They each won their preliminary heats to automatically move on to the final, with Thomas surging across the finish line in 8.56 to set the standard in Sunday's opening round.  Jones won her heat in 8.62 and Morgan added a time of 8.96 to advance on time and give the Wildcats three of the eight qualifiers for the final.
 
The preliminaries of both the 200 meters and the 400 meters were straight time trials, with no automatic qualifiers for finishing first in a heat.  Senior Amari Onque-Shabazz (Plainfield, N.J.) did win her heat in the 400 meters in 55.62 and will appear in tomorrow's final.  She was the fifth-fastest qualifier and is seeded in what appears to be the faster of the two-section final. 
 
It was a strong day for Villanova's middle distance runners.  Merrill and fellow freshman Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio) were the top two finishers in their heat of the 800 meters to secure automatic qualifying spots for the final.  Merrill posted a time of 2:12.31 and Martinez finished in 2:12.74.  Helwigh is the top qualifier in the Mile with a time of 4:53.63 and Sumner posted a time of 4:54.32 in the opening round.