ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The final track event on the first night of competition at the 2023 Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships was the men's distance medley relay which featured Villanova competing in the event for the 14^th time in the last 21 seasons. In Friday night's race at Albuquerque Convention Center the Wildcats tallied an 11^th place finish with a final time of 9:55.89.
 
Villanova's lineup included fifth year Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland), freshman Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.), senior Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and junior Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.). During a physical opening leg of the race a collision during the first lap and additional jostling for position later on affected several teams just as the race was starting to take shape. The eventual 11^th place finish for the Wildcats will earn the squad second team All-America honors when those awards are officially announced last week.
 
This season marked the first time since 2018 that the Wildcats qualified a distance medley relay squad for the NCAA Championships (the meet in 2020 was canceled). Villanova earned its spot in Friday night's race when it set a school record with a time of 9:20.44 at the Alex Wilson Invitational in South Bend, Ind. last month. That mark broke the previous school record of 9:21.04 which had stood for 36 years since being set outdoors at the 1987 Penn Relays. The lineup of Murphy, Milgie, Dolan and O'Donovan also shattered the Wildcats previous indoor record in the DMR by nearly seven seconds.
 
Villanova has had at least one individual athlete or relay team compete at the NCAA Championships in all 58 years that the meet has been held since it debuted in 1965. Friday's race in the DMR wrapped up the 2022-23 season for the Wildcats, who now turn their attention to the outdoor season which begins with competition in the Penn Challenge on Saturday, March 18 at Franklin Field.