Complete Results -- Mile

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—In the best Villanova finish in the Mile in 40 years, junior distance runner Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) came in second in the national championship race with a time of 4:08.03 at the Birmingham Crossplex on Saturday afternoon.  He used an incredible closing kick to surge through the pack of 12 runners and give the Wildcats their highest individual finish at the NCAA Championships since 2003. 
 
Comber was the lone men's athlete competing for Villanova at the national meet this weekend, but the eight team points he scored were good for the Wildcats finishing in a tie for 29^th place out of the 87 teams that had at least one entry into the meet.  It matches the team's best finish at the indoor NCAA Championships since 2004, while the eight points are the most Villanova has scored since its top-five team finish in 2003. 
 
The pack of runners in the Mile was tight throughout, but the move that Comber made with 400 meters to go in the race was nevertheless a dramatic one.  He was in eighth place near the back of the pack with two laps remaining around the banked 200-meter track.  Comber's split of 27.36 seconds on the second-to-last lap was the fastest in the field however, and he was back near the front of the pack when the bell sounded for the final lap. 
 
Less than eight-tenths of a second separated the top five runners at the finish line, and it took a full-speed sprint by Comber for all of the last 200 meters to secure his runner-up finish.  Comber ran the last lap in 26.31 and closed in 53.67 over for the final 400 meters.  Geordie Beamish from Northern Arizona came in first (4:07.69), while Comber held off Oliver Hoare from Wisconsin (4:08.14), Carlos Villarreal from Arizona (4:08.41) and William Paulson from Arizona State (4:08.45). 
 
In the semifinal heats on Friday night, Comber had a similarly strong finish to come in second in his heat and earn one of four automatic qualifying spots to the final.  He was ranked ninth overall in the preliminaries with his time of 4:09.31, but beat that spot by seven places in the final. 
 
The last time the Wildcats had a finish as high as second in any event at the indoor NCAA Championships was in 2003, when Adrian Blincoe was the runner-up in the 3000 meters and Villanova also won a national title in the distance medley relay.  Comber's second place finish in the Mile is the best for a Wildcats runner since Sydney Maree was the 1979 runner-up. 
 
This is the second straight year that Comber will be a first team All-American for the indoor track & field season.  He anchored Villanova's eighth place finish in the distance medley relay last year to earn his first career All-America accolade.  Comber is now a three-time All-American overall, including the two indoor honors as well as an All-American finish in cross country this past fall.  This year is the 21^st time that the Wildcats have had an All-American in the indoor Mile.