AUSTIN, Texas—Junior distance runner Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) had the fastest bell lap in his heat of the 1500 meters and is moving on to the final at the NCAA Championships.  He and teammate Logan Wetzel (Saline, Mich.) raced in the national semifinal heats at Mike A. Meyers Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, where four days of competition at the 99^th edition of the outdoor national meet began. 
 
Comber grabbed the fifth and final automatic qualifying spot from his heat with a time of 3:44.53.  Official splits from the race showed Comber to be in seventh place and in the thick of a crowded pack with one lap to go, but he came home strong with a split of 56.17 over the final 400 meters.  There was a gap of just 0.32 seconds at the finish line separating the third through seventh place finishers in the heat. 
 
The national championship race in the 1500 meters is scheduled for Friday night at 8:41 p.m. Eastern time (7:41 p.m. local time in Austin).  Villanova has a qualifier for the final for the seventh time in the last nine years, and Comber's bid for a national title can be seen live on ESPN and the WatchESPN app.  Comber was the runner-up in the Mile at the indoor NCAA Championships and is competing nationally in the 1500 meters for the first time this outdoor season. 
 
The second of the two semifinal heats went out at a quicker pace than the first one, with the field of runners coming through the first 300 meters in 43.59 before starting their first full lap around the track.  Comber led the field with a split of 62.04 on that lap, but it wasn't until he made a move on the back straightaway with 250 meters remaining that he put himself into the top five.  A strong finish across the line secured his automatic qualifying spot after several runners jockeyed for position coming down the final straightaway.
 
Comber has been an automatic qualifier through each of the first three rounds of the 1500 meters.  He opened competition at the NCAA East Preliminary in Jacksonville two weeks ago by placing second in his first round heat, then was second in his quarterfinal heat two days later to come out of the East region as the second-fastest overall qualifier for the NCAA Championships.  Comber has run as fast as 3:42.54 in the 1500 meters, with that time coming in the Joe Walker Invite at Ole Miss earlier this season. 
 
The first semifinal heat on Wednesday saw Wetzel put the finishing touches on an outstanding final month of the 2019 collegiate season.  He posted a time of 3:48.41 and came in 10^th in a heat that went out rather slowly before picking up in a big way at the end.  The pack of runners moved through the first 800 meters of the race in just over two minutes, setting up a big finish which saw 10 runners with splits faster than 56 seconds on the final lap (55.92 final lap for Wetzel). 
 
Wetzel's outdoor season culminated with his first individual berth at an NCAA Championships meet.  He too was an automatic qualifier for the national meet in Austin after coming in fourth in his first round heat and fifth in his quarterfinal heat at the NCAA East Preliminary.  Wetzel recorded times of 3:47.09 and 3:50.04 in his two races in Jacksonville.  His season also includes a personal best mark of 3:44.73 which was set at the Stanford Invitational on March 29, while he was second to Comber in the 1500 meters at the BIG EAST Championships last month. 
 
In addition to his accolades in the 1500 meters, Wetzel also recorded a personal best time of 1:49.79 in the 800 meters this outdoor season and ran a split of 1:49.95 on the third leg of the 4x800 meter relay to help lead Villanova to a BIG EAST title in the race. 
 
The NCAA Championships continue with women's action on Thursday, when graduate student Caroline Alcorta (Springfield, Va.) will be in action in the championship race of the 10,000 meters.