AUSTIN, Texas—Junior high jumper Roschell Clayton (Montego Bay, Jamaica) tallied her latest strong performance on a national stage as she earned second team All-America honors in her NCAA Championships debut on Saturday night. Clayton cleared the bar at 1.81 meters (5-11 ¼) and tied for 14^th place at Mike A. Myers Stadium in an elite field of jumpers that combined to form one of the strongest fields for the event in the past several years.
 
Clayton recorded three successful jumps on the night, including her second attempt at 1.81 meters which was just one centimeter below the lifetime best she established at the NCAA East Preliminary meet two weeks ago. That performance lifted Clayton into second place in school history in the high jump and tied her for a fourth place finish which punched her ticked into the national championships this week.
 
The overall tally from Clayton's final three meets of the season is an impressive one. She won her first career BIG EAST title on Villanova's home track last month, then built on that performance with her personal best mark of 1.82 meters in Jacksonville at the regional meet. Finally came Saturday night's competition at the NCAA Championships where Clayton withstood a grueling competition which saw seven bar raises before the ultimate outcome was decided.
 
One by one in the early rounds, the jumps kept coming and the field of two dozen athletes kept soaring over the bar. The first two heights in the competition – at 1.73 meters and 1.78 meters – eliminated only one competitor. Even after the next bar raise to 1.81 meters there were still 19 athletes who remained. By comparison, at last year's national championships the field had been whittled to 14 athletes left after the first three heights. Saturday's competition featured eight more total jumps over the bar (76) than last season.
 
Clayton picked up her momentum where she left off at the NCAA East Preliminary and was quickly over the bar at the opening height on Saturday evening. She missed her first attempt at 1.78 meters before easily clearing it on her second try. The same pattern held at 1.81 meters when the bar rattled but ultimately stayed put after her second jump. She has now cleared 1.80 meters or better in competition three times during her career, including once indoors as a freshman in 2021 and twice in consecutive meets to close the 2023 outdoor season.
 
Saturday's performance puts Clayton into elite company in the Wildcats all-time record book. She is the third Villanova women's athlete to be an All-American in any field event, joining javelin thrower Jen Pastore (1995-96) and former teammate Sanaä Barnes (2019, 2021, 2022) who was the Wildcats first women's All-American in any of the jumps. Clayton is also one of five Villanova women to win a BIG EAST title in the high jump.
 
This year marked the sixth consecutive season and the eight time in the last nine outdoor campaigns that the Wildcats had two or more qualifiers for the NCAA Championships. Each of these year's qualifiers made their debut at the outdoor national meet, including Clayton on Saturday night and fifth year distance runner Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) who ran in the semifinals of the 3000 meter steeplechase on Thursday evening.
 
Villanova showed the depth of its roster late in the 2023 season as it led the BIG EAST with nine qualifiers for the NCAA East Preliminary meet two weeks ago and accounted for two of the nine athletes from the conference who competed at the NCAA Championships this week.