BETHLEHEM, Pa.—An incredible race with just 17 points separating the top four teams was literally too close to call and Villanova made a major statement at the Paul Short Run as it tied for first place in the team standings with No. 12 Northern Arizona on Friday morning. Led by three runners among the top six finishers in a field more than 300 strong, the Wildcats showed what they are capable of in the first big race of the 2021 cross country season.
Villanova matched the 12
th-ranked Lumberjacks at the top of the team standings and outkicked No. 15 Georgetown in the first showdown of the season between the perennial BIG EAST rivals. Northern Arizona and the Wildcats each scored 85 points in the Women's Gold Race on the Goodman Campus Course at Lehigh, with only a tiebreaker comparing the head-to-head results between each team's scoring runners determining Northern Arizona to be the team champion in the field of 38 teams. Utah State (93) was third and the Hoyas (102) came in fourth, with no other school having a score below 199 points as some of the nation's top heavyweights in women's cross country battled for the top spots.
The top three of the Villanova lineup will be a great strength for the team all season long and Friday's race showcased the depth of the team's entire roster. Senior
Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) finished third overall out of 343 competitors with freshman
Sadie Sigfstead (Edmonton, Alta.) coming in fifth and junior
Maggie Smith (Halifax, N.S.) coming in sixth. Olivere and Sigfstead were separated by less than two seconds at the finish line and the Wildcats had a spread of just 46 seconds between its five scoring runners.
Olivere recorded a time of 20:03.0 on the 6000 meter course and Sigfstead was right behind her with a time of 20:04.7. Smith crossed the line in 20:12.1 ahead of Villanova's fourth and fifth scoring runners – redshirt freshman
Kendra Lewis (Vancouver, B.C.) and junior
Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark) who finished consecutively in 35
th (20:46.9) and 36
th (20:49.0) places. Rounding out the top seven of the Wildcats lineup were graduate student
McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) in 65
th place (21:19.3) and freshman
Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.) in 71
st place (21:22.8).
An upstart Villanova team which has a remarkable 15 runners with either freshman or sophomore eligibility in cross country had not yet had a chance to make a splash on a national stage, but the Wildcats will be anonymous no longer after their strong result in Friday's race at one of the national's renowned annual meets on the cross country calendar. Villanova received a single vote in this week's national top 30 poll released by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) and were ranked third in the Mid-Atlantic Region behind Georgetown and Princeton.
Despite the Paul Short Run being only the second outing of the season for the Wildcats there is no such thing as "early" on the cross country calendar, not in a season that features three meets in the span of a month followed by three postseason races in just 23 days. Friday's strong result is sure to have both an immediate impact in upcoming national rankings as well as postseason implications for later in the year when the NCAA Championships draw nearer. Villanova has earned a team berth to the NCAA Championships five times in the last six seasons.
Teams entered up to 10 runners in Friday's meet and the Wildcats filled out their lineup with sophomore
Elizabeth Vaughn (Dayton, Ohio), freshman
Maya Dore (New York, N.Y.) and freshman
Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.). Vaughn registered a time of 21:32.9, Dorer finished in 21:35.2 and Carroll crossed the finish line in 23:21.9.
Villanova returns to action on Friday, October 15 when it competes in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, Wis.
