St. John’s Women’s Track took home fourth place at the Villanova Open, held at the Ocean Breeze Track & Field Facility in Staten Island, N.Y. Maya Stephens led her team during another dominant performance, she pulled in her fourth-consecutive 200-meter dash win. Adriana Wright also made a statement at the meet, tying a St. John’s record of 8.55 seconds in the 60-meter hurdle.
St. John’s finished in fourth place with 57 points. They earned eight scoring finishes, seven podium finishes and one event victory. Their place dropped from the Penn 8-Team Select but Coach Jim Hurt is more than satisfied with where his team is at going into the Metropolitan Championships.
“We continued to show improvement at the Villanova invite today,” Hurt told RedStormSports.com. “[Maya] ran a sensational 200-meter dash and Adriana Wright continued to drop her 60-meter hurdle time. Raquel Ricketts is working her way down in the 400-meter dash and Nyla Woods handled the weight throw and the shot put for us today.”
Maya Stephens and Denesha Ransome placed second and third in the 60-meter dash. Stephens had a time of 7.56 and Ransome had 7.69.
Senior Adriana Wright finished in third place in the 200-meter dash. Her time was 24.35 seconds, a personal-best in the event and the second-best time in the Big East. Wright also finished second in the 60-meter hurdles, her third-consecutive podium finish in that event. This is Wright’s first year at St. John’s.
Raquel Ricketts placed second in sprints with a time of 56.05 seconds. The sprinters put up a dominant effort this weekend owning six of St. John’s seven podium finishes.
Nyla Woods, a junior on the team ended with 2 scoring finishes in shot put and weight throw. Woods placed third with a mark of 16.84 meters and seventh in the shot put after tossing 11.97 meters.
Coach Hurt and his team are ready to go for the first of three championship events on the 2016-17 indoor schedule. Next weekend the Johnnies are competing in the Metropolitan Championships on Feb. 2-3.
“We are rolling into the Metropolitan Championships next weekend and it will take our entire team to bring home the championship trophy,” Hurt said.
