VILLANOVA, Pa.—Fifth year Villanova pole vaulter Ashley Preston (Franklinville, N.J.) won the fourth conference title of her career to highlight a day of strong results across the board for the Wildcats in the 2023 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships presented by JEEP at Villanova Stadium on Friday. Competing on its home track for the BIG EAST meet for the first time in six years, Villanova scored in all five events that had finals and amassed 34 points on the day. Fifth year distance runner Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) added a runner-up finish in the 3000 meter steeplechase later in the night.
 
Preston is both in elite company and in a class of her own after her championship performance on Friday afternoon. She is the Wildcats first athlete to be a four-time BIG EAST pole vault champion and this is the 10^th time that a Villanova athlete has won at least four career titles in the same event at the conference meet. Preston was previously the outdoor BIG EAST champion in 2019 and she won indoor conference crowns back-to-back years in 2019 and 2020. Her winning mark on Friday came after she cleared the bar at a height of 3.77 meters.
 
The top two steeplechase runners in program history combined for a 2-3 finish with Olivere crossing the line in 9:54.20 and senior Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark) placing third in 10:03.91. Olivere now holds the four fastest times in the Wildcats record book in the steeplechase, while she and Helwigh have combined to run the 14 fastest races in school history in the event. Their times on Friday night rank second and 11^th among those times, with Olivere's mark of 9:54.20 trailing only her school record performance of 9:49.88 from a June 2021 meet in New York. That result qualified her for that summer's U.S. Olympic Team Trials.
 
In the final track event of the night sophomore distance runner Sadie Sigfstead (Edmonton, Alta.) came in fifth in the 5000 meters with a time of 16:26.26. She was running her second race in just over 24 hours after winning the 10K on Thursday night. Sigfstead now has scored 14 points during the meet, with Villanova currently second in the team standings with 52 points. The majority of the events in the meet program will be scored during the conclusion of the championships on Saturday afternoon.
 
Fifth year thrower Liv Morgan (Bronx, N.Y.) and junior long jumper Caroline Carlson (Miami, Fla.) each scored in their respective events on Friday afternoon. Morgan came in fourth in the javelin with a throw of 42.53 meters and Carlson finished eighth in the long jump with a distance of 5.46 meters. Carlson was just three centimeters off her lifetime best mark in the long jump set last month and she scored in an outdoor BIG EAST event for the third time in her career. She previously tallied a pair of top-eight finishes in the heptathlon the last two seasons.
 
The rest of Friday's competition featured preliminary heats of several track events. Senior sprinter Jane Livingston (Lancaster, Pa.) is the fastest qualifier for the final of the 100 meter hurdles after posting a time of 13.54 in the heats. She will be joined in the final by fifth year teammate Jada Thomas (Kingston, Jamaica) who was seventh overall on Friday in 14.52. Livingston also advanced to the final in the 100 meter dash, where she broke 12 seconds for the first time in her career and registered a personal best mark of 11.96.
 
Villanova will have three of the eight runners in the final of the 800 meters after the trio of senior Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio), freshman Micah Trusty (Philadelphia, Pa.) and sophomore Alex Stasichin (Massapequa, N.Y.) were all automatic qualifiers coming out of their heats. Martinez, the outdoor bronze medalist last season and the indoor champion this year, recorded a time of 2:06.32. Trusty crossed the line in the same heat in 2:06.54 and Stasichin tallied a personal best time of 2:08.18 to finish second in her section. Beginning with the indoor BIG EAST Championships in February, Stasichin has lowered her PR in the 800 meters three times in her last six races in the event.
 
The first women's event on Saturday is the discus at 11:30 a.m. and the first track event is the 4x100 meter relay starting at 1 p.m.