GENEVA, Ohio—In a memorable finish that was not decided until the waning moments of the BIG EAST Indoor Track & Field Championships on Saturday afternoon, the Villanova men's track & field team won its fifth conference title in the last six seasons with a winning score of 174.5 points.  Junior distance runner Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) was named the Outstanding Track Performer of the meet, while head coach Marcus O'Sullivan and his coaching staff were presented with the BIG EAST Coaching Staff of the Year trophy. 
 
Comber was the individual BIG EAST champion in the Mile, was part of another championship in the 4x800 meter relay and added a runner-up finish in the 5000 meters to personally account for 20.5 of the Wildcats team points.  Villanova won five events in all at the conference meet while producing 15 top-three finishes.  Junior Andrew Marston (Wayne, Pa.) won the 5000 meters and the distance medley relay team claimed a first place finish on Friday afternoon, while Saturday's champions included Comber in the Mile, the 4x800 relay squad and graduate student Troy Gallen (Glen Mills, Pa.) winning the 60 meters. 
 
Villanova lived up to its reputation by dominating much of the distance competition.  The team had two athletes on the awards podium in both the Mile and the 3000 meters while producing seven point scorers in all from those two events.  The four runners who scored in the Mile – Comber, junior Logan Wetzel (Saline, Mich.), sophomore Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.) and freshman Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) – were the same quartet that teamed up to win the 4x800 relay.  In the 3K, junior Andrew Marston (Wayne, Pa.) tallied a second place finish and was followed by sophomore Martin Barr (Skokie, Ill.) in fourth place and graduate student Dylan Tarpey (Freehold, N.J.) in eighth. 
 
Gallen won the 60 meters in 6.86 and later finished fifth in the 200 meters with a time of 21.91.  Sophomore Amir Brock (Egg Harbor Twp., N.J.) came in eighth in the 200 meters, while the duo of sophomore Keegan Hughes (Malvern, Pa.) and senior Ville Lampinen (Vantaa, Finland) scored in the 400 meters.  Brock, junior Dan Powers (Chadds Ford, Pa.), Lampinen and Hughes combined to finish third in the 4x400 meter relay. 
 
Regardless of how the track events played out, the Wildcats eighth BIG EAST indoor title all-time never would have happened were it not for the performances of the team's field event athletes.  Villanova scored 41.5 points in the high jump, the triple jump and the shot put on Saturday afternoon while capitalizing on all the opportunities it needed to in order to put critical team points on the board. 
 
The last event of the day to finish was the high jump, with the Wildcats sealing their team victory as a result of having a pair of athletes on the podium and four finishers in the top seven of the event.  Sophomores Jacob Kelly (Longmeadow, Mass.) and Ryan Tompkins (Farmingdale, N.J.) came in second and third, respectively, while freshman Peter Willis (St. Charles, Ill.) was fourth and freshman Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) tied for sixth. 
 
Earlier in the day, sophomore Vincent Sengelmann had one of Villanova's key results when he finished third in the triple jump with a personal best mark of 14.32 meters.  He was followed by junior Steve Testa (Warminster, Pa.) in fifth place and Cunningham in seventh.  The shot put trio of senior Henry Sise (Hawthorn Woods, Ill.), sophomore Billy Loewen (Sparta, N.J.) and junior Chika Nwachukwu (Lawerence, N.J.) all notched soring finishes.  Sise placed fifth with a throw of 14.47 meters, while Loewen was sixth (14.01m) and Nwachukwu eighth (13.42m).