VILLANOVA, Pa.—The men's 4x800 meter relay team broke a stadium record that had stood for 36 years and highlighted four gold medal performances for Villanova on the final day of competition at the 2023 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships presented by JEEP which concluded at Villanova Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Senior middle distance runner Sean Dolan (Ewing, N.J.) defended his BIG EAST title in the 800 meters, sophomore Sean Donoghue (Dublin, Ireland) won his first career conference crown in the 1500 meters and fifth year triple jumper Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) cruised to his fourth BIG EAST gold medal.
 
A lineup that included senior Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.), Donoghue, junior Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) and Dolan won the 4x800 relay race in 7:17.96 to shatter the old facility record of 7:23.40 by nearly 5.5 seconds. The previous mark was also set by a Wildcats relay team which won a BIG EAST title – Mark Sullivan, Howard Jackson, Sean O'Neill and Bruce Harris. Murphy had the fastest split in Saturday's race at 1:47.88 on the third leg and Dolan pulled away on the anchor leg to cross the finish line with a nearly two-second margin of victory over Georgetown and the rest of the eight-team field.
 
It was the second time in less than 24 hours that Murphy was part of a stadium record on his home track. On Friday night he won the BIG EAST title in the 5,000 meters with a time of 13:43.32 to break a record that stood for 53 years and was one of the longest-standing records in Villanova Stadium history. Saturday's winning time of 7:17.96 is the eighth-fastest 4x800 relay in school history and the fastest the Wildcats have ever run outside of Championship of America races at the Penn Relays.
 
Villanova scored team points in 19 of the 22 events that made up the meet program at the conference championships this weekend. That includes nine podium finishes for the Wildcats, who totaled 122 points and finished third overall at the meet. Four of the team's five gold medals were won on the final day Saturday, adding to Murphy's championship in the 5K a night earlier.
 
In addition to the event champions on Saturday, Villanova got top-three finishes from sophomore thrower Tristan Bolinsky (Gordon, Pa.) in the discus as well as from the 4x400 meter relay team of junior Nicholas Mollica (Jackson, N.J.), freshman Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.), freshman Ronan O'Neill (Wilmette, Ill.) and junior Jakob Kunzer (George Town, Grand Cayman). Combining individual events and relays, the Wildcats had 25 athletes contribute to the team's point total. Villanova has scored 120 points or more at the outdoor BIG EAST Championships a total of 12 times, including eight of the last nine years the meet has been held.
 
The first individual event on the track Saturday featured a thrilling finish as Donoghue won the 1500 meters in 3:44.90. He surged from fourth to first during the final 400 meters of the race and took the lead with less than 50 meters to go before eking out the win by just over a tenth of a second over the runner-up from Butler (3:45.02) and the third place finisher from Georgetown (3:45.06). Redshirt freshman Devon Comber (Ambler, Pa.) finished fifth in the race with a personal best time of 3:46.55 and fifth year senior Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) placed eighth in 3:48.51. Comber cut nearly three full seconds off his previous PR which had been set at the Big 5 Invitational last month.
 
Dolan pulled away down the home stretch to win the 800 meters in 1:50.60. He has been the 800 meter champion at each of the last five BIG EAST championship meets, winning gold outdoors in 2021 before going on to sweep the indoor and outdoor championships both in 2022 and this year. Dolan becomes the fourth athlete in school history to win at least five career BIG EAST titles in the same individual event. He had previously been tied for the most 800 meter crowns with John Marshall, who won two career titles both indoors and outdoors. The other Wildcats to win five or more titles in a single event are Elvis Lewis in the 400 meters (six titles); Edwin Modibedi in the 400 meters (five); and Patrick Tiernan in the 5000 meters (five).
 
The triple jump was a landslide win for Cunningham, who recorded a winning mark of 15.87 meters to win his fourth BIG EAST gold medal and first outdoors. Cunningham held the lead from start to finish in the competition, with his first jump of the day going for 15.47 meters to put him into the lead. His next attempt wound up being the winner and Cunningham recorded four successful jumps on the day that all measured at least 15.23 meters. His four career titles in the triple jump are tied with former Villanova long jumper Elbert Maxwell for the most BIG EAST championships in any of the jumps.
 
Bolinsky earned All-BIG EAST honors in the discus for the second straight year with a throw of 48.25 meters. He joins Robert McDade (three) and Greg Mirecki (two) as the only Wildcats with at least two career podium finishes in the discus. Bolinsky was a two-time scorer at this weekend's meet and also registered a personal best mark in the hammer with a sixth place finish in that event on Thursday afternoon.
 
Freshman sprinter Amiri Prescod (Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago), Kunzer and Mollica were all individual scorers for Villanova in Saturday's events. Prescod came in sixth in the 100 meters with a time of 10.79 and placed seventh in the 200 meters in 22.16. Kunzer lowered his lifetime PR in the 400 meters for the second straight day and finished fourth in the final with a time of 48.27; he had posted a time of 48.50 in the preliminary heats a day earlier to best his previous PR of 48.84 from high school.
 
Kunzer later had a career best split of 47.23 while anchoring the 4x400 meter relay squad to a third place finish in 3:12.15. Mollica and senior Mac Costonis (Lower Gwynedd, Pa.) each scored in the final of the 400 meter hurdles with their best times of the season. Mollica finished fourth in 52.73 and Costonis moved up a spot from his ranking in the preliminaries to place sixth in 54.82.
 
Villanova totaled 18 points from the three relays on Saturday, adding to its championship in the 4x800 race and podium finish in the 4x400 relay with a seventh place finish in the 4x100 meter relay which opened the track portion of the meet program. Junior William Seijas (Shrewsbury, N.J.), freshman Luke Rakowitz (Dallas, Texas), O'Neill and freshman Sanjay Persaud (Bloomingburg, N.Y.) recorded a time of 44.03.
 
Freshmen field athletes Bennett Hemphill (Greenwich, Conn.) and Liam Anderson (Lebanon, N.J.) scored in their respective events. Hemphill placed fifth in the pole vault with a clearance at 4.07 meters and Anderson finished eighth in the shot put with a throw of 12.97 meters.
 
Connecticut finished first in the team standings with 284 points, followed by DePaul (127) and the Wildcats (122) to round out the top three scores. The rest of the team finishes included Marquette (89), Butler (88), Georgetown (87), Providence (33) and Xavier (19).