VILLANOVA, Pa.—Four athletes with previous experience at the NCAA East Preliminary meet and another who recently became the second-fastest performer in school history in the 400 meter hurdles form the group of five Villanova women's athletes who will head to Jacksonville, Fla. next week to compete in the early rounds of the NCAA Championships.
 
The declared athletes in every event who were accepted into the meet were announced on Thursday afternoon, with competition at the East Prelims taking place on the University of North Florida campus in Jacksonville from May 28-31. Women's events will take place on the second and fourth days of the meet, with action streaming live on ESPN+ throughout the week.
 
Senior distance runner Sadie Sigfstead (Edmonton, Alta.) highlights the Wildcats selections for the East Prelims as a double qualifier in the 10000 meters and the 5000 meters. She will race in the national semifinal round of each event in Jacksonville, where she will be seeking to advance to the NCAA Championships for the second straight year.
 
Sigfstead placed 12^th nationally in the 10K last year to earn second team All-America honors. She owns four of the 12 fastest times in school history in the 10K and won a Penn Relays title in the event last month. Sigfstead finished ninth in the semifinal round of the 10K and 14^th in the same round of the 5K at last year's East Prelims.
 
Fifth year collegian Lizzie Martell (Essex Junction, Vt.) and Adria Retter (Quakertown, Pa.) are each headed back to the preliminary meet. Martell is in her first year at Villanova after competing for New Hampshire during her undergraduate career. Between the two schools this will be her third time qualifying for the East Prelims in the 800 meters. She advanced to the national quarterfinal round of the event in 2021 and ran in the first round heats two years ago. She has run a lifetime best of 2:03.93 in the 800 meters this outdoor season and is coming off silver medal performances in both the 800 meters and the 4x400 meter relay at the BIG EAST Championships last weekend.
 
Retter is a former Division III national champion in the discus and ranks second in Villanova history in the event with a PR of 52.31 meters set earlier this year. She has surpassed 50 meters four times during her career, including three times this season, and came in 29^th in the discus last year. The difference is that Retter competed in the shot put, discus and hammer during the 2024 campaign but has focused exclusively on the discus in her final season of collegiate eligibility this spring. Retter competed at Swarthmore during her undergraduate career and was the NCAA champion in the discus in 2023.
 
The sophomore duo of Malaika Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) and Olivia Allen (Kingwood, Texas) are qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary in the high jump and the 400 meter hurdles, respectively. It is the second straight appearance for Cunningham, who is at a point in her career to carve her own path through the Villanova record book. She won her first career BIG EAST title with a winning jump of 1.75 meters last weekend.
 
It was the first BIG EAST championship meet since the 2020 indoor season which did not have either Roschell Clayton or Sanaä Barnes competing. The pair won a combined seven BIG EAST high jump titles during their collegiate careers and Cunningham finished second to Clayton at both the 2024 outdoor and 2025 indoor meets. Cunningham has achieved her lifetime PR of 1.77 meters in the high jump both indoors and outdoors. She finished 23^rd in the event at last year's NCAA East Prelims.
 
Few athletes had as notable a performance at last week's BIG EAST Championships as Allen, who won her second straight conference title in the 400 meter hurdles and recorded her second PR of the season in the event. It was how Allen did it which made the feat even more impressive. She won the BIG EAST title in 58.01 and cut nearly 1.5 seconds off a previous PR (59.45) which had been set only three weeks earlier at the Penn Relays.
 
Allen moved up from fifth place to second in school history in the 400 meter hurdles and in the process dropped her mom, Debbie, down to third place on the Wildcats all-time performance list. Debbie was the BIG EAST champion in the 400 meter hurdles in 1984 and 1985. Following the 1984 title, she went on to record her PR of 58.37 in the final of the ECAC Championship on May 13, 1984. That put her second in school history to her teammate and Villanova record holder Patty Bradley (56.26), with Debbie remaining second until Olivia passed her last weekend.