BIG EAST Men’s Track Athlete of the Week
4xMile Relay Team, Villanova (Sean Donoghue, Ben Thomas, Bailey Habler, Marco Langon)
Villanova won its 23rd Championship of America title in the 4xMile relay and third in the last four years at the 130th Penn Relays. The Wildcats held off Oregon for the championship by just five hundredths of a second (16:18.47 to 16:18.52). Langon rallied Villanova from fourth place when he got the baton to a first-place finish and was named the College Men’s Athlete of the Meet for the Relay events.
BIG EAST Women’s Track Athlete of the Week
Sarah Trainor, UConn
She finished second in the Penn Relays steeplechase with a sub-10-minute time (9:56.25), which is good for first in the BIG EAST and in the Northeast region. She was also the lead-off leg of the Penn Relays championship DMR race, which set a school record of 11:08.87 to win the event. The foursome set a new UConn and Penn Relay Event Record, besting a 2023 mark of 11:19.09 set by South Carolina.
BIG EAST Men’s Field Athlete of the Week
Isaiah Hopf, DePaul
Hopf earned DePaul’s first event title of the weekend at the Drake Relays, winning the men’s triple jump with a 15.13m performance. The mark ranks first in the BIG EAST this season and helped power a standout showing for the Blue Demons.
BIG EAST Women’s Field Athlete of the Week
Jamora Alves, St. John’s
Alves notched a pair of top-five finishes at the 130th Penn Relays over the weekend. On Friday, she recorded a second-place finish in the shot put with a toss of 14.95m (49 feet, 0.75 inches), just two centimeters off first place. The next day, the senior unleashed a season-best mark of 52.37m (171 feet, 10 inches) to place fourth in the discus. Her mark sits atop of the BIG EAST and is 31st in the NCAA East Region.
Notable Performances
- Villanova’s Olivia Allen improved her BIG EAST-leading time in the 400-meter hurdles to 58.08 at the Penn Relays. She ran the 400-meter leg of the distance medley relay one day later and recorded a split of 52.71, the sixth-fastest 400-meter relay split in school history.
- DePaul’s Jaiah Hopf captured the women’s triple jump title at the Drake Relays with a mark of 12.71m. Her winning jump leads the BIG EAST this season and highlighted a strong weekend for DePaul in Des Moines.
- Marshall Potter (UConn) won the Penn Relays in the shot put and hammer throw. In the hammer throw, he threw a personal best 62.61m on his final toss of the day. After winning the hammer on Thursday, he came back on Friday and captured the shot with a throw of 17.99m on each of his last two throws of the day.
- Georgetown’s Aaron Guillaume, Nicholas Givan, Jaden Marchan and Tinoda Matsatsa won the sprint medley relay at the Penn Relays with a time of 3:13.96, breaking the school record. The last time the Penn Relays saw a repeat champion in the SMR was 2011-12, when Penn State pulled off the feat.