NEW ORLEANS—Junior Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) added another honor to his impressive resume for the 2018 season when he was named the Mid-Atlantic Region Men's Athlete of the Year on Tuesday afternoon.  The award was presented by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) and voted on by the head coaches in the region following the NCAA regional meets that took place last week. 
 
Comber was the individual champion at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, which followed him winning the BIG EAST title last month.  He has won three of his five races overall during the 2018 campaign, earning first team All-BIG EAST recognition and Mid-Atlantic All-Region honors for the third straight year along the way.  This is the first region Athlete of the Year honor for Comber. 
 
At last week's NCAA regional, Comber covered the 10,000 meter course at Penn State in 31:04.5 and crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of the runner-up from Georgetown.  He helped lead Villanova to a second place finish in the team standings and an automatic bid to this week's NCAA Championships, the program's first berth in the national meet in four years.  Comber won the BIG EAST title with a time of 23:59.7 over 8,000 meters. 
 
The season got off to a fast start for Comber, who finished first at the season-opening Main Line Regional for the third straight year and was also the Wildcats top finisher at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational two weeks later.  He was named the BIG EAST Male Athlete of the Week following each of those races and gained attention after his 35^th place finish in Wisconsin led all athletes from four BIG EAST schools that competed at the meet.  There were 19 nationally-ranked teams in the field of 33 squads in Wisconsin, including seven of the top 10 teams in the national poll released just before the meet. 
 
Villanova has produced the Mid-Atlantic Region Athlete of the Year six times since the current NCAA regional system was put in place before the 2000 season.  Four of the top region honors have come in the last six years alone, and Comber also became the team's 14^th individual BIG EAST champion. 
 
In addition to Comber being the Athlete of the Year, the Wildcats had three other runners earn Mid-Atlantic All-Region accolades.  Junior Andrew Marston (Wayne, Pa.) came in fifth at the NCAA regional last week and earns all-region acclaim for the third straight season.  Freshmen Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) and Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) also earned all-region honors after finishing 14^th and 21^st, respectively, at the Mid-Atlantic Regional.  This is the first time since 2015 and the 15^th time in the last 19 years overall that Villanova has had at least four all-region performers. 
 
The second place team finish at the NCAA regional earned the Wildcats their 33^rd berth all-time to the NCAA Championships and the first since 2014.  Villanova has won four national titles, produced two individual national champions and had a total of 38 All-Americans in cross country. 
 
Saturday's national championships take place on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, Wis.  The men's race goes off at 11:45 a.m. (12:45 p.m. Eastern time) and can be seen live on Flotrack.