ATTLEBORO, Mass.—A lineup that featured four runners making their BIG EAST Championships debut impressively had a spread of just 25 seconds between the team's five scorers and Villanova tallied a fourth place finish in the 2022 conference meet held at Highland Park on Saturday morning. First year runner Amelia Arrieta (Kansas City, Mo.) led the Wildcats with a 20^th place individual finish and was named a second team All-BIG EAST honoree in the awards ceremony that followed the race.
 
Villanova finished the day with a team score of 119 points and came in fourth out of 11 teams at the meet, which moved to a new site on a decommissioned golf course in Massachusetts this year. Arrieta was followed in the Wildcats lineup by sophomore Emily Robinson (Rogers, Ark.) in 24^th place with a time of 21:24, while graduate Ariana Gardizy (Lansdale, Pa.) finished two spots and six seconds behind her in 21:30.
 
The other two scoring runners were junior Anna Helwigh (Soborg, Denmark) in 30^th place (21:35) and sophomore Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) who finished 32^nd overall (21:39). First year runner Kinsey Pogue (Danville, Calif.) came in 52^nd with a time of 22:33 to round out the Villanova lineup. Only Robinson and Helwigh came into the meet having run in a BIG EAST cross country race thus far in their careers. Gardizy is a transfer on the Wildcats roster this season who spent her undergraduate career at Penn.
 
Villanova has competed with a makeshift lineup at times this season, but one thing the Wildcats did have on Saturday was impressive balance from each of its six runners. The spread of 25 seconds between the team's scoring five is the smallest at the BIG EAST Championships for the team since 1990 when Villanova was winning the second of what became six straight conference titles.
 
The season to date has been an opportunity for the Wildcats younger runners to demonstrate their progress. Villanova posted strong finishes in the Coaching Tree Invitational at Indiana to open the season as well as at the Penn State National Open earlier this month. The team entered Saturday's conference championships ranked fourth in the Mid-Atlantic Region in the latest polls released by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
 
The next chance for the Wildcats to continue showing the growth of their young team is on Friday, November 11 when the team competes in the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional at Penn State.