VILLANOVA, Pa.—Sophomore thrower
Tristan Bolinsky (Gordon, Pa.) and junior distance runner
Cole Walker (Chadds Ford, Pa.) each scored in their respective events with personal best performances as the 2023 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships presented by JEEP kicked off at Villanova Stadium on Thursday night. Bolinsky finished sixth in the hammer and Walker came in eighth in the 10,000 meters. Those two events were the only scored events on the first of three days of competition at the conference meet, which returned to the Wildcats home track for the first time in six years.
Bolinsky qualified for the final round of throws in the hammer after he ranked sixth out of 11 competitors through the preliminary round of three throws apiece. His best mark of the day came on his second attempt when he recorded a distance of 52.58 meters. Bolinsky is ranked eighth in school history in the hammer, with his PR on Thursday moving him close to the threshold for seven on the program's all-time performance list. The previous top mark of his career had been 52.31 meters and came at this same meet last season when he made his BIG EAST Championships debut with competition in the hammer.
Bolinsky is the defending conference champion in the discus and is scheduled to compete in that event on Saturday afternoon. Competition picks back up on Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. with the continuation of the multi-events, while field events get underway at 11 a.m. and preliminaries on the track start at 2 p.m.
The final event on Thursday night was the 10,000 meters in which Villanova had three of the 15 competitors. Walker finished eighth overall with a time 30:06.96, followed by sixth year runner
Will Merritt (Smithsburg, Md.) and fifth year competitor
Jack Fredian (Arlington Heights, Ill.) who placed ninth and 12
th, respectively. Walker had run the 10K as a collegian for the first time earlier this season at the Raleigh Relays where he produced a time of 30:24.20. He cut more than 17 seconds off that mark on Thursday night in an extension of what has been a strong year of competition. Walker has established new personal best marks in the 3K, the 5K and the 10K in 2023 in addition to recording PRs at three different cross country distances last Fall.
In the two events that were scored on Thursday night, DePaul and Butler each scored 19 points. Providence had 16 points on the day, followed by defending champion Connecticut (11), Marquette (6), Villanova (4) and Georgetown (3).
