Photo Gallery | Men's Distance Medley Relay -- Official Results

COLLEGE STATION, Texas--One of the longest-standing traditions for the men's track & field team at the indoor NCAA Championships continued on Friday night as Villanova scored in the distance medley relay with an eighth place finish at Gilliam Indoor Stadium. A quartet that consisted of fifth-year senior Ben Malone (River Vale, N.J.), freshman Brian Faust (Stone Mountain, Ga.), junior Harry Purcell (Dublin, Ireland) and sophomore Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) posted a time of 9:35.49 in a tight and physical 12-team race.

This is the fifth time in the last six seasons, the 10th time in the last 16 years and the 24th time overall that the Wildcats have scored team points with a top-eight finish in the DMR at the national championships. Villanova has scored more times in the DMR than in any other individual or relay event at the indoor championships, with this year's squad set to become the 25th group of All-Americans from the Wildcats in one of the NCAA's most competitive events both historically and at present.

Each of the 12 teams that qualified for Friday night's national championship race had posted raw or converted qualifying times lower than 9:30 during the current indoor season, making it the fastest field ever for the NCAA meet. Villanova entered the championships ranked 11th out of the 12 accepted entries, but beat that ranking by three spots with terrific efforts on all four legs of Friday's race.

The splits for the Wildcats were 2:57.18 for Malone over 1200 meters, 47.75 for Faust on the 400 meter leg, 1:49.51 for Purcell over 800 meters and 4:01.06 for Comber on the 1600 meter anchor leg.

Malone led off for Villanova and perhaps set a tone for the whole team by taking the rail and running at the front of the pack with Ole Miss leadoff man Waleed Suliman for the first 400 meters. The pace quickened with less than two laps to go before the first exchange and Malone slid into the middle of a crowded pack. He handed the baton to Faust in fourth place, safely ahead of a collision which took place right on the line going into the second leg.

In his NCAA Championships debut, Faust held the Wildcats in fourth place for his two laps around the track and handed off to Purcell with Villanova in good position to make a move. Purcell quickly moved into third place and was just a few strides off the lead for the first half of his 800 meter assignment. The second two laps of that third leg saw a great deal of movement and jockeying for position all around Purcell, although he never gave up his position among the top three spots.

Utah State half-miler Clay Lambourne started to push the pace with two laps to go before the final exchange, with the Aggies and Stanford briefly running up front before Patrick Joseph of Virginia Tech made a big move to take the lead and put distance between himself and the rest of the field.

Official splits going into the anchor leg showed Virginia Tech in front by more than a second, with Oregon in second place followed by a group of Notre Dame, the Wildcats and Stanford with just a tenth of a second separating them.

The race started to string out into single-file formation after the first few laps of the anchor leg and Hokies anchor Neil Gourley continued to put space between himself and the rest of the field en route to Virginia Tech winning the national title. Comber ran a hard-fought anchor leg to keep Villanova in the top eight of the field and ensure a scoring finish. His split of 4:01.06 is a new personal best as he gets closer and closer to putting himself into a sub-four minute mile conversation. Comber ran a PR of 4:04.10 in an open Mile during the indoor season and previously split 4:02.97 on the anchor leg of the DMR at the BIG EAST Championships just two weeks ago.