UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.—It was a historic day for Villanova at Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track as three Wildcats posted sub-four minute times in the Mile in the same race at the Sykes & Sabock Challenge on Saturday afternoon. The trio of senior
Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland), junior
Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and redshirt freshman
Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) all crossed the finish line in under four minutes to add to the Villanova legacy of one of the most distinguished achievements for a distance runner.
Murphy becomes the 44
th member of the Wildcats celebrated club of sub-four minute milers, joining O'Donovan and Dolan on the current roster as well as dozens of world-class runners who came before them. Villanova head coach
Marcus O'Sullivan, one of only three athletes ever to run more than 100 career sub-four races, has now coached the 18 most recent sub-four Villanovans. O'Donovan first achieved the feat in Boston in February 2020 and Dolan registered the first sub-four miles of his career during the 2021 indoor season.
In Saturday's race at Penn State it was O'Donovan who led the Wildcats trio with a time of 3:57.46, while Dolan was just behind him in 3:57.59 and Murphy posted a time of 3:59.63. Pending the outcome of other races around the country this weekend, O'Donovan and Dolan currently rank 13
th and 15
th on the season's NCAA Division I Indoor Qualifying List. They each now own two of the 10 fastest indoor Miles times in school history. The top 16 The top 16 declared athletes in each individual event contested at the NCAA Championships will be selected for the national meet in March.
O'Donovan came in second in Saturday's race, followed by Dolan in third place and Murphy fifth in a field of 37 runners. The first five runners across the finish line in the fastest heat of the Mile broke four minutes, with the three Villanova runners accompanied by athletes from Penn State and Penn in posting historic marks.
It was a great day all-around for the Wildcats, who also had entries in the 600 meters and the 3000 meters on Saturday afternoon. Junior
Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.) notched the seventh-fastest time in school history in the 600 meters and posted a personal best time of 1:20.04 to finish second in his heat. Anderson will move up to fifth individually on Villanova's all-time performance list in the 600 meters, with his time on Saturday the fastest by a Wildcats runner since Harry Purcell posted the program's number two time of 1:17.85 four years ago.
The trio of senior
Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia), junior
Haftu Strintzos (Victoria, Australia) and redshirt freshman
Jack Jennings (Mendham, N.J.) recorded personal best times in the 3000 meters later in the day. Phillips broke eight minutes for the first time in his career with a mark of 7:59.44 and finished fourth out of 31 runners in Saturday's race. Strintzos finished sixth with a PR of 8:00.77 and Jennings placed ninth in 8:16.22 to lower his high school PR in the 3K by nearly 40 seconds. Two other Villanova runners were in action in the 3000 meters, with graduate student
Ryan Cutter (El Sobrante, Calif.) recording a time of 8:26.11 and senior
Ben Seiple (Westport, Conn.) crossing the finish line in 8:27.83.
A late change to this weekend's schedule due to winter weather on the Eastern seaboard was an advantageous one for the Wildcats, who were initially scheduled to compete in the John Thomas Terrier Classic in Boston before switching to the Penn State meet to accommodate easier travel arrangements.
The next events on the Villanova schedule take place next weekend as groups of Wildcats will head to Virginia Tech for the Doc Hale Virginia Tech Elite Meet and to New York for the Dr. Sander Invitational/Columbia Challenge.
