UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.—Villanova senior
Sadie Sigfstead (Edmonton, Alta.) will be headed to the NCAA Championships for the third time in her career after she recorded a third place individual finish on Friday afternoon in the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional. Sigfstead was one of three Mid-Atlantic All-Region performers for the Wildcats, who placed fifth out of 30 teams at the meet. Sigfstead was joined in earning all-region medals by senior
Emma McGill (Lebanon, N.J.) and fifth year
Nikki Vanasse (Martinsville, N.J.).
This is the eighth time in the last nine seasons that there has been a regional meet that Villanova has had at least three athletes garner Mid-Atlantic All-Region honors by virtue of a top 25 individual finish. It is the third career top-10 finish and second season in a row being in the top three at the meet for Sigfstead, while both McGill and Vanasse each tallied the second all-region accolades of their careers. Sigfstead's time of 19:30.8 on the Penn State Golf Courses is the fastest ever by a Wildcats runner on a 6,000 meter cross country course.
Villanova finished with 108 points in the team standings in a competitive race. The top five teams accounted for 22 of the 25 all-region performers. West Virginia (41 points) came in first followed by Georgetown (58), Penn State (85) and Princeton (99). No other teams had scores below 258 points in the meet, while the Wildcats score of 108 is its lowest in three years.
Sigfstead now owns two of the three fastest times in school history on a 6K course, including today's record time along with a mark of 19:35.5 which she recorded at this same meet last season at Lehigh. The previous school record for a 6K cross country race was 19:34 by Sheila Reid, also set at an NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional meet and on the same Penn State course as Sigfstead ran on Friday.
This is the second straight season that Sigfstead and McGill have been at the top of the Villanova lineup. McGill came in 14
th overall with a time of 20:14.7 and was followed by Vanasse in 25
th place (20:40.2) in the field of 214 runners to round out the all-region performers. The other two scorers for the Wildcats were first year collegian
Rosie Shay (Middletown, N.J.) who came in 27
th (20:41.7) and senior
Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) who finished 39
th (21:01.8).
Shay finished just 1.5 seconds out of an all-region spot in a strong finish to what has been a terrific rookie season. She was in the middle of the field halfway through the race before moving up 14 spots in the ranks over the final 2900 meters, including gaining six spots on the field in the last 1200 meters alone. Carroll and senior
Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.) finished consecutively in 39
th and 40
th (21:03.6) places, followed by junior
Amelia Arrieta (Kansas City, Mo.) who rounded out Villanova's lineup in 60
th place (21:22.9). Only two teams aside from the Wildcats (Georgetown, Penn State) had six runners among the top 40 finishers.
Team and individual selections for the NCAA Championships will be announced on Saturday evening. The national meet takes place in Madison, Wis. on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course on Saturday, November 23.
