SOUTH BEND, Ind.—The quality of competition in NCAA track & field this indoor season has been so good, and the times being consistently posted in distance races have been so impressive, that earlier in the year Villanova head coach Marcus O'Sullivan surmised that it might take "something near a school record" in the distance medley relay for the Wildcats to put themselves in contention for a spot at the NCAA Championships next month.
 
Villanova ran a DMR race at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Saturday afternoon and produced a performance that didn't "near a school record" so much as it shattered the marks previously written into the Wildcats all-time records. A lineup of junior Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.), freshman Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.), senior Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and fifth year Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) stormed their way to a record performance of 9:20.44 at the Loftus Sports Center, not only etching themselves into the Villanova record book but also making good on O'Sullivan's earlier prediction.
 
First, the records. Murphy, Milgie, Dolan and O'Donovan eclipsed the Wildcats former indoor standard of 9:27.04 by nearly seven full seconds. The old mark had been set by Jordy Williamsz, Donald Urschel, Dusty Solis and Rob Denault on February 13, 2015 at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational in Boston. Villanova's indoor record had only progressed twice in the last 20 years before Saturday's performance. A time of 9:29.12 set in an NCAA gold medal performance on March 14, 2003 stood for more than a decade before twice being beat in consecutive seasons in 2014 and 2015.
 
The more significant mark that Saturday's race knocked from the top spot is the now former absolute school record of 9:21.02 which had stood the test of time for more than 35 years since the 1987 Penn Relays. That previous time had been run by Sean O'Neill, Edwin Modibedi, Bruce Harris and Gerry O'Reilly on April 24, 1987 in a Championship of America race. The mark of 9:21.02 remains the third-fastest in Penn Relays history as it slides down to the second spot in the Wildcats record book.
 
As for the aftermath of Saturday's race and other results from around the nation this weekend, O'Sullivan was correct to foreshadow what Villanova needed to do in order to secure a berth for its DMR team at the NCAA Championships. The top 16 times in the NCAA this season all occurred this weekend and the Wildcats left little to chance with their record-breaking run at Notre Dame. Villanova now sits at No. 5 on the national descending order list as of 8 p.m. on Saturday evening.
 
The top 12 declared relay teams will be selected for the national meet on March 10-11 in Albuquerque, N.M. and this weekend marked one of the final opportunities for teams to take their best shot at the NCAA leaderboard prior to many of the conference championship meets which will take place next week (the BIG EAST Championships are in Chicago this coming Friday and Saturday, February 24-25). Villanova has won six NCAA titles in the distance medley relay and been All-Americans in the race 25 times overall.
 
Four of the top 10 overall DMR times in school history have been recorded in the last 10 years, while each of the Wildcats five fastest indoor marks have occurred since 2003. As competition begins to wrap up for the current weekend, both Murphy and O'Donovan remain among the top 20 on the NCAA leaderboard in both the mile and the 3000 meters. Murphy is ranked 14^th in the mile (3:55.58) and 17^th in the 3000 meters (7:45.67) while O'Donovan sits at 19^th (3:56.08) and 18^th (7:46.67) on those lists, respectively. Individual NCAA berths will be awarded to the top 16 declared athletes in each NCAA Championships event.