VILLANOVA, Pa.—A record-breaking performance and second career BIG EAST title for junior thrower
Tristan Bolinsky (Gordon, Pa.) was an electric start to the day and Villanova scored 18 points in two events as the 2024 BIG EAST Track and Field Championships presented by JEEP kicked off Thursday at Villanova Stadium and the Pike Field throwing areas. Bolinsky broke the school record in the hammer on his final throw and the Wildcats are currently in second place going into the first full day of competition on Friday.
The highlight of the day came in Villanova's first event as Bolinsky threw for 58.56 meters, more than a meter further than the previous school record of 57.46 meters set by
Riley LaRiviere just over two years ago (April 15, 2022 at Princeton). Bolinsky went wire-to-wire with the lead in Friday's competition and added his second career BIG EAST gold medal to the conference championship he won in the discus as a freshman two years ago. He is the Wildcats second-ever BIG EAST hammer champion and first since
Russell Palmer in 1983.
All three Villanova throwers in the hammer tallied personal best marks, led by Bolinsky and followed by sophomore
Liam Anderson (Lebanon, N.J.) who placed seventh and freshman
Jonathan Evans (Springfield, Va.) who finished ninth. Anderson threw 35.82 meters on his last attempt and Evans registered a mark of 33.66 meters on his fourth throw of the day. The efforts of Bolinsky and Anderson accounted for 12 points in the Wildcats team score.
The final event Thursday night was the 10,000 meters which was held in a steady rain. Sixth year collegian
Jack Fredian (Arlington Heights, Ill.) lowered his lifetime best in the 10K by nearly 30 full seconds and finished in fourth place with a time of 29:22.57. Another sixth year runner,
Henry Myers (Portland, Ore.) tallied an eighth place finish in 30:07.73 and senior
Cole Walker (Chadds Ford, Pa.) was 13
th with a time of 30:49.05.
Bolinsky had such a good start to the day that he had already recorded a personal best by a margin of more than one meter when he threw 56.67 meters on his first attempt of the day. None of the other nine competitors in the field matched that effort and Bolinsky remained in the lead until the final round of throws even after he himself fouled on four straight attempts. He pushed the distance nearly two full meters further with his last attempt to set a new Villanova standard.
It has been quite the rise for Bolinsky, who just seven weeks ago headed into the start of the outdoor season ranked eighth in school history in the hammer with a then-PR of 52.58 meters recorded in the Wildcats home field at last year's BIG EAST meet. He extended his top career mark to 52.70 meters in the season opener at UCF on March 22, then surged into fourth place in the Villanova record book after a throw of 55.58 meters in Virginia on April 20. The record-breaking throw on Thursday lifted Bolinsky past
Frank Anuszewski (56.88m),
Mark Blattner (57.36m) and
LaRiviere (57.46m).
Bolinsky is now a two-time champion, four-time all-conference performer and eight-time BIG EAST scorer in his career. Anderson scored at the conference meet for the fourth time in his career and the first time in the hammer. The evening's 10K run saw Fredian notch his first career top-eight conference finish, while Myers scored in an individual track event for the first time during his two-year Wildcats career.
Action continues on Friday morning at the BIG EAST Championships. The live broadcast on BEDN powered by FloSports goes on the air later in the day ahead of preliminary heats in the track events at 2 p.m.
