'Nova track teams could benefit from hoops success

Villanova women's track and cross-country coach Gina Procaccio recalled the time she felt very good about her chances of attracting a top high school runner after the Wildcats finished a back-to-back national cross-country championship run in 2010 and 2011 but wound up losing the prospect to Stanford.

So she couldn't help but chuckle a couple of weeks ago when she checked her email after Kris Jenkins hit the game-winning three-point shot against North Carolina to give Villanova the national championship in basketball.

"We're already looking at kids we're going to recruit this summer and juniors we've been in touch with," Procaccio said Wednesday at a Penn Relays preview luncheon. "So one of best milers in the country, after Jenkins sank that shot, immediately shot an email to us that said, 'I love Villanova.'

"I said to Jay Wright, 'When I won national championships, I couldn't get the best kid in the country. But you win, and now I may get the best kid in the country.' But we'll see. It's to be determined."

Procaccio said the basketball championship helps all programs in the athletic department, that it "definitely sends the message that we're serious about athletics and we're a big-time program."

"We've done a lot with our track and field program over the years, so people know that history," she said. "But it helps even more to know that in addition to the big-time sports - basketball, football - we're a big-time sport as well."

Villanova's women's cross-country team has accounted for nine of the university's 20 national championships, with eight more coming in men's cross-country and men's indoor and outdoor track and field.

Marcus O'Sullivan, 'Nova's men's cross-country and track and field coach, said that the common bond of all athletic programs is to strive for excellence and that the campus was uplifted by what the basketball team did.

"I think a rising tide floats all boats," he said. "We're going through a really nice period at Villanova the last number of years in terms of construction projects - new dormitories, new facilities, new everything. We're at a point where I think everything helps.

"I think people become a lot more aware, they become cognizant of the school and what we're doing academically and athletically. So I would like to think that it does help."

The Wildcats won three Championship of America events - women's distance medley and 4x800-meter relays and men's 4-by-mile relay - at last year's Penn Relays, but the competitive status of two of the key figures on those teams has changed.

Senior Angel Piccirillo, who led off the DMR and anchored the 4x800, is redshirting during the outdoor season. Procaccio said Piccirillo, who finished second in the mile in last month's NCAA indoor championships, fought through a foot injury during the indoor season and after a three-week rest, "it just didn't seem like enough time to bring her back."

For the 'Nova men, senior Jordy Williamsz, who ran a scintillating anchor leg to outkick Oregon's Edward Cheserek in the 4-by-mile, is "a little on the tired side," according to O'Sullivan, and it's questionable whether he'll participate at the carnival.

O'Sullivan said Williamsz went home to his native Australia to compete in the Olympic trials and finished well back in the 1,500 meters, but he may have a chance to make the Olympic's qualifying standard later this season.

"He's been running hard for the last three years," he said. "He's been sick all through the winter just struggling with chest colds and everything. So I think he went to the trials in what I would consider not the greatest of health, so we're just trying to give him a break and give him a chance to rebuild."

jjuliano@phillynews.com

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