PRINCETON, N.J.—Junior distance runner Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) set a meet record and took over the East Region lead in the 1500 meters with a personal best time of 3:39.42 on the first night of the Larry Ellis Invitational at Weaver Stadium on Friday night. Murphy and fifth year Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) were the top two finishers in the 1500 meters, junior Sean Dolan (Ewing, N.J.) won the 800 meters and unattached Villanova freshman Marco Langon (Raritan, N.J.) won the 5000 meters on a big night of competition for the Wildcats distance runners.
 
The heats of the 1500 meters halfway through Friday night's distance carnival at Princeton took center stage for Villanova thanks to Murphy's elite performance. His time of 3:39.42 puts him into 10^th place on the Wildcats all-time performance list, displacing former Villanova All-American Jordy Williamsz whose collegiate PR was 3:39.53 in the 2015 edition of the Larry Ellis meet. Murphy and Dolan are the only current members of the Wildcats roster who have broken 3:40 in the 1500 meters during a collegiate race. Times below 3:42.20 in the event are the metric equivalent of a sub-four minute mile.
 
Murphy and O'Donovan raced in the fastest heat on Friday night and went out near the front of the pack for the first 300 meters of the race. They traded the lead between themselves during each of the three full laps around the Weaver Stadium track, with Murphy moving into first place by the time the bell rang for the final lap. O'Donovan wound up second with a personal best time of 3:40.68, lowering his career top time from the mark of 3:40.95 he had posted at the Joe Walker Invite in Mississippi on April 10, 2021. He slides into ninth place on this season's East Region descending order list as of the time of Friday night's race. Murphy and O'Donovan own the top two times in the BIG EAST this Spring.
 
Sophomore Sean Donoghue (Dublin, Ireland) had a big finish in his own heat of the 1500 meters and won the heat in 3:43.94. He had the lead for the final two laps of the race and powered down the final straightaway to hold off the runner-up by just over two-tenths of a second. Donoghue was seventh overall out of 56 runners who competed on Friday night. Fifth year distance runner Ben Seiple (Westport, Conn.) posted a time of 3:53.70 in an earlier heat.
 
The first track event of the meet was the men's 800 meters and Dolan won the fastest heat with a time of 1:47.33. It is the third-fastest mark in the East Region this season and puts Dolan into the BIG EAST lead. The top three runners in the race all crossed the finish line in 1:48 or faster and Dolan had a split of 54.48 over the final 400 meters to secure the first place finish. Senior Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.) registered a time of 1:50.88 in the second heat of the 800 meters and fifth year Trevor Potts (Sparta, N.J.) posted a time of 1:55.82 in a later heat.
 
In the final event of the night the Wildcats had entries in both the elite section and the unseeded section of the 5000 meters. Langon is redshirting the 2023 outdoor campaign and ran unattached in the elite section which he won in 13:47.42. The time will rank him eighth on the all-time Villanova performance list in the 5K and was an impressive collegiate track debut for the Wildcats freshman.
 
Villanova distance runners Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) and Haftu Strintzos (Melbourne, Australia) tallied 5K times which put them among the East Region leaders for the 2023 season. Phillips came in third overall in Friday's race with a time of 13:51.55 and Strintzos was close behind him in fourth place with a time of 13:53.79. They tentatively ranked 19^th and 21^st, respectively, on the East Region descending order list at the time of the race. Sixth year Ryan Cutter (El Sobrante, Calif.) posted a time of 14:15.78 on Friday and finished ninth in the elite section of the race.
 
In the earlier unseeded section of the 5000 meters, fifth year Henry Myers (Portland, Ore.) posted a time of 14:36.27 and junior Cole Walker (Chadds Ford, Pa.) recorded a time of 14:46.75.
 
Action continues at the Larry Ellis Invitational on Saturday afternoon.