Villalba turns on the heat
West grad looks strong at GA All-Comers Meet
Just as the blur in fluorescent green streaked to the front of the pack, spectators hanging out trackside and at the finish kept asking the same question: who is that?
That would be Maddie Villalba, who made an impressive appearance Tuesday night at Germantown Academy’s All-Comers Meet.
“I’m doing Junior Nationals next week so the plan was just to get in some work with spikes and race, and it felt pretty good. It was really hot,” she said smiling, speaking of the 91-degree heat at race time, “so it wasn’t ideal, but I’m happy to get the work in.”
The Central Bucks West graduate and rising sophomore at Penn went a fast 2:09.68 in the 800-meter run on what was a scorching night on the track at Carey Stadium.
As all heats were mixed, Villalba was the only female competitor in a heat comprised mainly of college males, and she held her
own, beating her seed time by a second and pushing the pace.
Right after that, Villalba went to the other side of the track to put in a workout with her coach, Juli Benson.
“She’s an Olympian. She’s pretty cool,” Villalba said with a big smile — Benson ran professionaly for seven years and competed at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Along with “capitalizing on some of the work they just put in,” Tuesday provided a nice break from the norm.
“I really wanted to have fun with the meet because I don’t have a ton of meets in my season where I can just show up and have fun,” Villalba said. “There are definitely some stressful meets in my year and this is a meet where I can get out some of the nerves without having a lot of pressure on me.
“So the goal of today was to get some work in, in a racing environment.”
Villalba, a two-time PIAA Champion in the 800 in her days at West, is coming off a strong freshman season at Penn.
At the Penn Relays, she helped the Quakers to seventh in the 4x800 College Womens Championship of America and also was a member of the DMR foursome that raced to sixth in the COA.
In the indoor season, Villalba competed in four meets, focusing on several middle-distance events and relays and she racked up five top-10 finishes on the year.
Back in the fall, she placed 19th in her collegiate cross-country debut at the Big 5 Invitational and the Doylestown native finished seventh overall and third among attached runners at the Haverford Invitational.
“It was good. It was a lot of fun,” Villalba said of her freshman year at Penn. “I absolutely love my teammates, my team and my coach. So I think it was a really good fit.
“I had some things I struggled with this year but I’m taking this time with Junior Nationals to really tune up and get myself really healthy and fit.”
Villalba will have a pair of teammates in the 800.
“I wanna run a good race. I wanna show up and run well,” she said. “A PR would be nice. It’s been a while but I’ll see what I can do.”