STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.—The indoor track & field season is officially underway for Villanova as the Wildcats competed in the Penn 10-Team Select at Ocean Breeze Track & Field Athletic Complex on Saturday evening. Among the 16 athletes in competition for Villanova were eight who were making their collegiate debuts. Four top-three finishes highlighted the Wildcats results for the day, including two strong races from freshman sprinter
Amiri Prescod (Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago).
Prescod opened the meet by winning the 60 meter dash in 6.93 to immediately put himself into sixth place on the all-time Villanova performance list in that event. He was seeded second out of 17 runners after he posted a time of 7.00 in the preliminary heats. Prescod came back to lower his time by seven-hundredths of a second and tally the win in the final. Later in the night he led four Wildcats in the 200 meters with a third place finish and a time of 22.38.
Junior sprinter
Nicholas Mollica (Jackson, N.J.), sophomore
William Seijas (Shrewsbury, N.J.) and freshman
Luke Rakowitz (Dallas, Texas) followed Prescod in the 200 meters and. Mollica came in eighth with a time of 22.84, while Seijas (23.19) and Rakowitz (23.27) were separated by less than a tenth of a second in 12
th and 13
th places, respectively.
Villanova also had four runners in the 400 meters and the group was paced by freshman
Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.) who placed fourth out of 24 competitors in 49.43. Junior
Jakob Kunzer (George Town, Grand Cayman) and freshman
Sal Barretta (Whitestone, N.Y.) finished 12
th (50.78) and 13
th (50.84), while junior
Mac Costonis (Lower Gwynedd, Pa.) was 16
th with a time of 51.14.
The contingent of sprinters formed two teams for the 4x400 meter relay to finish off the night. One team came in second out of 10 squads in the relay with a time of 3:17.99, finishing four seconds ahead of the Wildcats "B" team which came in fourth in 3:21.99.
Saturday night's distance events saw personal best times from senior
Will Merritt (Smithsburg, Md.) in the 3000 meters and senior
Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.) in the mile. Merritt posted a time of 8:19.99 in the 3K to lower his previous PR which had been recorded in 2019 in Boston by nearly 5.5 seconds. Anderson finished third in the mile with a time of 4:11.73 to lower his PR from high school by nearly six seconds. Sophomore
Chris Weeks (Virginia Beach, Va.) ran in the 800 meters and finished with a time of 1:58.27.
The freshman trio of thrower
Liam Anderson (Lebanon, N.J.), jumper
Daelyn Nwaobasi (Nashville, Tenn.) and pole vaulter
Bennett Hemphill (Greenwich, Conn.) were in action for Villanova in the field events. Nwaobasi placed seventh in the long jump with a distance of 6.12 meters, Hemphill cleared 4.20 meters in the pole vault and Anderson threw for 12.12 meters in the shot put. The final individual event of the evening for the Wildcats was the weight throw in which sophomore
Tristan Bolinsky (Gordon, Pa.) threw for 14.94 meters.
Villanova returns to Ocean Breeze next Saturday when it hosts the Villanova Invitational at the facility beginning at 4 p.m.
