EAST MEADOW, N.Y. – Villanova left the Nassau County Aquatic Center on Friday night with eight medals to its name, three of those being gold, to stay in the lead at the BIG EAST Swimming and Diving Championships with one day remaining.
Through 28 events, the Wildcats lead the field with 1038.5 total points. They sit ahead of second-place UConn with 990.5.
The trio of gold medals came from
Kelly Montesi in the 400 IM,
Milly Routledge in the 200 Free and the 400 Medley team of Montesi,
Perri Stahl,
Elizabeth Bailey and
Abbey Berloco. On the week, the 'Cats now have 18 medals, nine of those gold.
Montesi and
Kaitlin Gravell went first and third through the morning 400 IM heats to land in the A-final where they maintained those finishes. Montesi's winning time of 4:11.84 made her the program's first four-time 400 IM champion and was an NCAA-B standard time. Gravell touched the wall in 4:17.90.
Four of the nine Wildcats who competed in the 200 Free prelims secured a spot in the evening's championship final with four of the top-five fastest times in the morning rounds. Routledge swam a 1:48.04 en route to her gold, becoming the first three-time 200 Free champion in team history.
Nicole Welch took bronze in the event with a time of 1:50.45 while
Molly Benson and
Abbey Berloco were sixth (1:50.81) and seventh (1:51.16), respectively.
The 400 Medley Relay team locked in the second-fastest time in Villanova history at 3:40.16, just a second shy of bypassing the 3:39.17 mark set by
Darby Goodwin,
Heather Farley,
Mackenzie Niness and
Taylor Wilson at the 2018 BIG EAST Championships.
Elizabeth Bailey was the lone Wildcat in the 100 Fly, earning bronze-medal status with a 54.71 time that lifted her to seventh on the program's top performers list.
Grace Wielar finished second in the bonus final of the event with a 58.09 time.
Stahl and
Emily Zimmermann both used top-eight swims in the prelims to make it to the 100 Breast A-final. Stahl earned a third-place finish by shaving nearly a second off of her personal best with a 1:03.16 showing. That swim made her the eighth-fastest performer in Villanova history. Zimmerman clocked in at seventh with a 1:05.82 time.
Audrey Pastorek recorded a 55.26 to tie for bronze in the 100 Back, becoming the third-fastest performer in team history for the event.
In 1-meter diving,
Andrea Holtz scored a 464.65 total that was good enough for fourth. She was fifth heading into the final after scoring a 215.50 in the prelims.
The Championships comes to a close on Saturday with prelims at 10 a.m. for the 200 Backstroke, 100 Freestyle, 200 Breaststroke and 200 Butterfly. Finals at 5:45 p.m. will also include the 1650 Freestyle and the 400 Freestyle Relay.
