STORRS, Conn.—Villanova had three individual champions and five more podium performances on the final day of the 2025 BIG EAST Track and Field Championships presented by JEEP to tally a fourth place team finish with 109.5 points at George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex on Saturday afternoon. It is the 11^th straight outdoor conference meet in which the Wildcats have scored over 100 points. The sophomore trio of Ajanae Thompson (Rahway, N.J.), Olivia Allen (Kingwood, Texas) and Malaika Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) all won gold medals in their respective events.

[READ MORE: Villanova's Trio of Gold Medalists Each Had a Legacy Passed Down to Them]
[READ MORE: Allen's Gold Medal Performance in 400 Meter Hurdles Makes Her No. 2 in School History]
 
The other individual medalists for Villanova were fifth year Lizzie Martell (Essex Junction, Vt.) in the 800 meters, senior Taylor Woodeshick (Nescopeck, Pa.) in the high jump and sixth year Adria Retter (Quakertown, Pa.) in the discus. In addition, the Wildcats also tallied All-BIG EAST finishes with silver medals in both the 4x400 meter relay and the 4x800 meter relay. Villanova scored in 12 of the 13 events it competed in during the weekend.
 
Martell tallied the second-fastest time of both the season and her career in the final of the 800 meters. She crossed the finish line in 2:04.14 in a thrilling finish to a race that had two lead changes in the final 25 meters. Martell and the eventual champion Charlotte Tomkinson from Georgetown each passed Nora Haugen of St. John's coming down the home stretch and the trio was separated by just 0.41 seconds at the finish line. Martell, a graduate transfer from New Hampshire, made her BIG EAST Championships debut this weekend and earned medals in both the 800 meters and the 4x400 meter relay.
 
The high jump was the only event of the weekend in which two Wildcats made the awards podium. In addition to Cunningham winning her first career BIG EAST title, Woodeshick cleared the bar at a personal best height of 1.65 meters to tie for third place and make the awards podium for the first time in her career. Woodeshick improved her lifetime PR three times in just over a month to close her collegiate career, culminating with Saturday's bronze medal performance.
 
A fast start helped Woodeshick build momentum. She cleared the bar on her first two jumps of the day at 1.55 meters and 1.60 meters. Woodeshick's best career mark prior to his year was 1.61 meters which she first accomplished in her collegiate rookie season in 2021 and had matched on several occasions since then. She had a breakthrough performance at Princeton on April 4 when she cleared 1.63 meters, then added a centimeter with a mark of 1.64 meters in Virginia two weeks later.
 
The next bar raise after Woodeshick's first two jumps on Saturday was to 1.65 meters. She missed on her first two attempts but made it over on her final try, matching the same progression as Linn Hertz Saebbo from St. John's who also earned a share of third place. This weekend was the third straight BIG EAST meet dating back to the 2024 outdoor championships that Villanova had two podium performers in women's high jump.
 
Retter medaled in the discus for the second straight season with a throw of 49.17 meters. She was in fifth place after the first round of throws when she recorded a mark of 43.25 meters, then increased her distance to 46.75 meters on her second attempt and was in third place through the rest of the competition. She tallied her best mark of the day on her third attempt and wound up surpassing 48 meters three times during the competition. Senior Faith Haught (Payson, Ariz.) came in sixth with a distance of 42.34 meters as she and Retter both scored for the second straight year.
 
The first track final of the day was the 1500 meters in which the Wildcats had four qualifiers for the first time since 2018. Villanova's trio of first year Rosie Shay (Middletown, N.J.), sophomore Tilly O'Connor (Spring Lake, N.J.) and sixth year Maggie Smith (Halifax, N.S.) finished consecutively in fourth through sixth places to earn 12 team points. Shay posted a time of 4:19.53, followed by O'Connor in 4:20.06 and Smith in 4:20.77. First year Bella Walsh (Wilmington, Del.) was 11^th with a time of 4:31.05.
 
Each of those four runners later formed the Wildcats lineup for the 4x800 meter relay. Smith led off and was followed by Walsh, O'Connor and Shay in a runner-up performance which saw Villanova post a time of 8:43.85. It is the second time in the last three years and the 34^th time in the history of the outdoor BIG EAST Championships (women's competition began in 1983) that the Wildcats have made the awards podium in the 4x800 relay. Walsh had the team's fastest split on the relay of 2:09.88 on the second leg.
 
Villanova earned All-BIG EAST recognition in the 4x400 meter relay for the second straight year and 19^th time outdoors. The lineup of senior Alex Stasichin (Massapequa, N.Y.), Martell, junior Myonica Jackson (Bolingbrook, Ill.) and Allen recorded a time of 3:39.75 to finish in second place and earn a silver medal. They posted the Wildcats fastest time in the 4x400 relay since a mark of 3:39.68 in the 2021 national quarterfinal round at the NCAA East Preliminary meet.
 
Stasichin, Martell, Jackson and Allen beat Villanova's winning time of 3:40.00 from last year's outdoor BIG EAST meet. Jackson and Allen posted splits of 54.65 and 54.15, respectively, on the second half of Saturday's relay. The splits were personal bests for each of them.
 
Fifth year thrower Teresa Rotolo (Warren, N.J.) threw 33.92 meters in the javelin to score a team point with an eighth place finish. She surpassed 33 meters on three of her four countable throws in Saturday's competition.
 
Selections for the NCAA East Preliminary meet in Jacksonville, Fla. will be announced this Thursday. The competition will take place the following week from May 28-31 at Hodges Stadium on the University of North Florida campus.