BETHLEHEM, Pa.—A strong all-around team performance and a surge to the finish line by its top three runners sparked an upstart Villanova team to the women's gold race championship at the Paul Short Run early Friday afternoon. Each of the team's five scoring runners finished in the top 61 overall out of more than 350 runners on the starting line, and the Wildcats tallied a five-point victory over runner-up Penn State and the rest of a field of 40 teams.
Villanova finished with 110 points while Penn State (115) was second and BIG EAST foe Georgetown came in third (143). The rest of the top 10 included Texas A&M (172), Utah State (214), Connecticut (241), Bowling Green (246), Penn (282), Harvard (297) and Elon (317). This is the first time since 2000 that the Wildcats have won the gold race at the Paul Short Run, a big date on the calendar in the first month of the season which has national implications for later in the year.
Leading the way for Villanova was a trip of top 10 finishers who collected individual awards following the face. Graduate student
Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) came in third overall out of 354 runners and posted a time of 19:38.3 which is the fourth-fastest mark that any Wildcats athlete has ever recorded on a 6K cross country course. Carroll and junior
Tilly O'Connor (Spring Lake, N.J.) will now rank fourth and eighth in school history on the program's 6K cross country performance list. O'Connor came in sixth overall in Friday's race with a time of 19:51.1.
Graduate student
Nikki Vanasse (Martinsville, N.J.) was the third Villanova runner in the top 10 and the third to post a time under 20 minutes. She placed ninth in 19:59.5 and was followed in the top five by sophomore
Rosie Shay (Middletown, N.J.) in 31
st place (20:27.8) and first year collegian
Sophia McInnes (Bayport, N.Y.) who came in 61
st with a time of 20:55.2. Each of the times for the Wildcats scoring five were new career bests.
Friday's team result was a major statement for a Villanova team which does not expect to field its full team lineup until the Pre-National Invitational in Missouri later this month. It was the first time in three outings this season that even a majority of the Wildcats full lineup raced but, despite that, head coach
Gina Procaccio has led her team to three consecutive victories to open the season at the Temple Invitational, the Main Line Invitational and now Friday's race which featured top teams from both the Mid-Atlantic Region and around the country.
First year runners
Maeve Smith (Ocean City, N.J.) and
Cecilia Montagnese (Leetsdale, Pa.) rounded out Villanova's top seven. Smith posted a time of 21:03.6 and Montagenese was close behind in 21:13.5. Fellow freshman
Zoe Mosher (Pleasantville, N.S.) posted a time of 21:39.2 and senior
Kinsey Pogue (Danville, Calif.) finished with a time of 21:49.2.
The annual Paul Short Run on the Goodman Campus Course at Lehigh is the site of this year's NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional next month. Next up after Friday's race for the Wildcats is another preview of a postseason course as they will run in the Pre-National Invitational at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo. on October 18.
