STORRS, Conn.—Traditions get passed down through the generations and that was particularly true for the Villanova sophomore trio of Ajanae Thompson (Rahway, N.J.), Olivia Allen (Kingwood, Texas) and Malaika Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) who each won gold medals in their respective events on the final day of the 2025 BIG EAST Outdoor Track and Field Championships presented by JEEP on Saturday afternoon. Each of the three, in their own way, inherited a championship tradition from former Wildcats greats who came before them.
 
Allen topped the BIG EAST awards podium in the 400 meter hurdles for the second straight year and Thompson won her first title in the 100 meter hurdles after capturing gold in the 60 meter hurdles indoors earlier this year. Cunningham is a BIG EAST champion for the first time after winning the high jump at George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex; she had been the runner-up twice before in her career. Villanova has won a combined 33 BIG EAST titles in these three events over the years, including a sweep of the three events in each of the last two seasons.
 
The first of the trio to win their gold medal on Saturday was Thompson in the 100 meter hurdles. She was the top seed for the final after posting the fastest qualifying time of 13.66 in Friday's preliminary heats. Thompson finished first in the championship race in 13.81 and easily outpaced runner-up Danella Dawkins from St. John's by nearly a quarter of a second.
 
Thompson ranks eighth in school history in the 100 meter hurdles with a PR of 13.60 recorded at the Virginia Challenge last month. Her potential was evident in her collegiate rookie campaign last year when she was the BIG EAST runner-up to teammate Jane Livingston, a fifth year collegiate in 2024 who swept conference titles indoors the 60 meters and 60 meter hurdles before replicating the feat with championships in the 100 meters and 100 meter hurdles outdoors.
 
"It feels great," Thompson said of becoming the Wildcats latest 100 meter hurdles champion. "Just working really hard to make this possible is really great."
 
Around the same time that Thompson was being interviewed on the BIG EAST Championships live broadcast after her gold medal finish, her teammate Malaika cleared the high jump bar at 1.75 meters on her second attempt. She then had to wait as the eventual runner-up, top seed Annika Bynum from Marquette, took her last two attempts at 1.75 meters and narrowly missed on both. Cunningham follows in the footsteps of Villanova high jump champions Sanaä Barnes and Roschell Clayton who won a combined seven BIG EAST titles starting in 2019 and continuing through the last of Clayton's four championships indoors earlier this year.
 
This weekend was the first BIG EAST meet since the 2020 indoor championships that did not have either Barnes or Clayton competing. Malaika's older brother Malik was a first team All-American triple jumper for the Wildcats and was a teammate of both Barnes and Clayton. Malaika had been the BIG EAST runner-up to Clayton at the 2024 outdoor meet as well as the indoor championships earlier this year which marked the end of Clayton's collegiate eligibility. It was once again time for a tradition to be passed down.
 
"Before I got here, I definitely saw everything Sanaä was doing and that was really motivating," Cunningham said. "Then seeing the season [Roschell] had last year, indoor nationals, outdoors nationals, I think that is the kind of excellence I would like to have in the jumps as well. Seeing that shows you that it's possible here and that if you follow the guidance, the coaching here and all the support leading into it, it's very much achievable. To some extent you want to pave your own way, but seeing other people doing it, it serves as a motivator for you. Everyone has their own way of jumping and as you find your own way, you start to have more success. But seeing other people do it, it's tangible for you to achieve that too."
 
Cunningham came into Saturday's competition when the bar was at 1.65 meters and four other jumpers remained from an original field of 10 athletes. She started the day 2-for-2 with jumps at 1.65 meters and 1.70 meters, with the latter height eliminating three more athletes – including Villanova senior Taylor Woodeshick (Nescopeck, Pa.) who tallied her third PR of the season and tied for third place to make her first BIG EAST Championships awards podium.
 
"I think the biggest thing going into this competition is I said that I wanted to come out here and win today," Cunningham acknowledged. "I knew there would be good competition from Marquette and other schools that would be here, but I knew as a jumper I have what it takes to come out here and do well, so the only thing on my mind was to come out and win regardless of the height and I think I did a good job of that."
 
It helped Cunningham that her brother Malik and her former teammate Clayton were behind her. They were right behind her in fact, cheering loudly each time Cunningham was about to jump and even louder after a successful clearance.
 
"It was great," Cunningham said of their support. "We spoke a little bit about them diving here to watch. My mom was like 'you guys have to get down there.' She is one of my biggest cheerleaders, so them being here reminds me also a lot of home, so it's great to have them here and it's comforting. I was a little jittery and when I heard them cheering it really calmed me down."
 
There is a saying that good things come in threes. Allen was the next one up. She not only defended her 2024 title in the 400 meter hurdles, but her PR of 58.01 cut nearly 1.5 seconds off the previous top time of 59.45 she had established just three weeks ago at the Penn Relays. Allen surged three spots on the Wildcats all-time performance list and now ranks second in school history in the 400 meter hurdles. She passed, among others, her mom Debbie who is now third in the hurdles in the Villanova record book. 

[READ MORE: Olivia Allen Wins Second Career BIG EAST Title in 400 Meter Hurdles and in the Process Becomes the Fastest Performer in the Event in Her Own Family]
 
Thompson, Cunningham and Allen are linked together by more than the Wildcats champions who came before them. The common thread linking all of them is Villanova associate head coach Anthony Williams, the longest-tenured member of the coaching staff who is in his 31^st year coaching the Wildcats sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers. Williams has helped maintain Villanova's place of prominence as one of the top track & field programs in the nation, and in recent years his athletes have been particularly successful.
 
This weekend at the outdoor BIG EAST meet, Williams' athletes combined to score 72.5 points. In addition to the three titles were All-BIG EAST performances in women's high jump and the 4x400 meter relay as well as in men's long jump, the 400 meter hurdles and the 4x400 relay. Williams' athletes scored 111.5 points at last year's outdoor conference championships.
 
A successful legacy like the one that Williams has built does not happen by accident, and his success as a coach ties directly back to his own success as an athlete. There are three athletes in Villanova history who have jumped further than 16 meters in the triple jump. Two of the three are Malik Cunningham and Jermaine Deans. Both were not only coached by Williams, but are products of the same high school in Jamaica that Williams attended as a scholastic athlete.
 
Now is the time for Thompson, Allen and Cunningham to shine brightly and etch their own stories into the fabric of the Villanova program. At some point however, it will also be their turn to move on and yield to the next generation. With their championship performances on Saturday, they now know fully the tradition that they are upholding and will one day pass down to the next generation.