CARMEL, Ind.—Led by senior Haftu Strintzos (Melbourne, Australia) who was the individual runner-up, Villanova placed all five of its scoring runners in the top 20 overall at the 2021 BIG EAST Cross Country Championship Presented by JEEP held at Northview Church on Friday morning. This is the fourth straight season that the Wildcats have earned at least five All-BIG EAST honors based on its top-20 finishers at the conference meet. Villanova scored 63 points and finished third in the team standings in a remarkably close race that saw the top four teams separated by just 50 total points.
 
Strintzos along with redshirt freshman Jack Jennings (Mendham, N.J.), senior Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland), graduate student Justin Weber (South Milwaukee, Wis.) and graduate student Ryan Cutter (El Sobrante, Calif.) were recognized during the awards ceremony held after the conclusion of both the men's and women's races. This is the second straight season that Strintzos has tallied a top-two finish at the BIG EAST Championships. He and O'Donovan are each three-time All-BIG EAST performers in cross country.
 
Friday's races got a boost from the weather, which was overcast and mild while avoiding heavy rain which had been forecasted for part of the day. Strintzos ran the men's 8,000 meter race in 23:59.0, looking strong out of the starting chute and staying at the front of the pack for the duration. He was followed in the Wildcats lineup by Jennings, who placed 10^th overall in 24:35.8 in a strong result for only the fourth collegiate race of his career. Each of the top four teams in the final standings had two or more runners among the top 10 finishers.
 
Less than half a second separated O'Donovan and Weber at the finish line as they came in 15^th (24:56.3) and 16^th (24:56.6), respectively. Cutter, a graduate transfer this season who ran at UChicago during his undergraduate career, placed 20^th in his BIG EAST debut with a time of 25:00.7. Villanova has now had 122 All-BIG EAST performers all-time in cross country.
 
There was little margin for error for any of the teams in a close and competitive race. The Wildcats team score of 63 points would have won the meet in two previous seasons and would have been no worse than a second place finish 17 times in the previous 42 years the BIG EAST Championships have been held. Butler (35 points) was the team champion on its home course and Georgetown (49) came in second ahead of Villanova and Providence (85).
 
Redshirt freshman Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) and senior Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) rounded out the Wildcats top seven. Both were just outside of adding to the team's all-conference contingent, as Murphy came in 21^st overall (25:06.8) and Phillips was 23^rd (25:08.2). The rest of the Villanova lineup included graduate students Paul Nichols (Latham, N.Y.), Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.) and Will Merritt (Smithsburg, Md.). Nichols came in 32^nd (25:54.7) and was followed by Steele in 34^th place (26:01.8) and Merritt who finished 46^th (26:40.8).
 
Villanova will now prepare for the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional on Friday, November 12. The regional meet takes places on the Goodman Campus Course at Lehigh and will determine the automatic and at-large qualifiers for the NCAA Championships later next month.