PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - There was a palpable sense at the start of the men's Championship of America distance medley relay that it would be the kind of race where anything could happen. The field of 10 teams was a typical who's who of top distance programs, but with no clear favorite to win it was going to come down to who would make the first move and who would find the most willpower to win. Sophomore anchor Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) did both of those things for Villanova and led the Wildcats to their record 25th title in the Penn Relays men's DMR at Franklin Field on Friday evening. It is the first time in seven years that Villanova has been DMR champions.

Fifth-year senior Ben Malone (River Vale, N.J.), freshman Brian Faust (Stone Mountain, Ga.), junior Ville Lampinen (Vantaa, Finland) and Comber outlasted the rest of the field to post a winning time of 9:34.37. Comber broke four minutes on the 1600 meter anchor leg and came from behind as the Wildcats held off Notre Dame by less than a second in an exciting finish to a back-and-forth affair.

"This is incredible," Wildcats head coach Marcus O'Sullivan said. "It is special to the program and it is incredibly special to me because [Penn Relays] is about life and I've always said that. Running here teaches you resilience, it teaches patience and you find out about what you're supposed to be with humility. Seeing these guys out there, I'm so proud of them and what they did today."

Indiana and Princeton had a wide lead over the rest of the pack at the start of the anchor leg but there were eventually five teams in the mix with 800 meters to go. Comber put himself in the race but had started to lose ground when he made a move on the back straightaway with 600 meters left. He had the lead on the bell lap and had to fight furiously to hold it approaching the final turn as several other contenders tried to chase him down and break him once and for all.

"I knew I had to go eventually," Comber said. "I thought if I made the first move I could hold everyone off. When the Notre Dame and Columbia guys had passed me and then I came back into the pack of five, I could have either waited to get passed again or waited for one of them to go. I just decided to take things into my own hands, be proactive rather than reactive and do what I had to do."

Malone led off the race with a split of 2:58.34 on the 1200 meter opening leg. He ran at the front of the pack for a good portion of that leadoff leg before slipping back into the middle of the pack nearing the first exchange. Official race splits showed him to be in sixth place when Faust took the baton for the exchange.

"I have seen Ben sacrifice so much over the last few years just to be on relays, both here and for indoor nationals, all kinds of things," Comber said. "He has put the team ahead of himself year after year and I can't express how grateful I am to him to give us opportunities like he did today to do something special."

Faust made his Penn Relays debut a big one with a personal best split of 46.48 on the second leg of the relay. Within his one lap around the Franklin Field track he passed at least a couple of runners to not only keep Villanova in the race but also give the Wildcats a chance to be at the front of the pack when the opportunity presented itself.

"Brian is a gamer," Malone said of his teammate. "Every time we have asked him to show up he has, whether it was qualifying indoors or NCAAs indoors. He has always shown up and gotten the job done. He has a bright future ahead of him and he isn't afraid of the moment."

Lampinen has had success during his collegiate career running both the 400 meters and the 800 meters, including in individual races and in relays. He was in the unenviable position of having the baton when the third legs from Indiana and Princeton moved to put the rest of the field behind him. Still, Lampinen had a split of 1:49.78 in a strong effort.

"Villanova is very special in shaping athletes to be the best that they can possibly be," O'Sullivan said. "I thought Ville was running slow and then I looked at the watch and he split a 1:49. To see them struggle and then come here and give it their all, you watch it all unfold and it fulfills what we are here for."

By the time Comber had gotten himself into the mix during the middle of the anchor leg, and especially with less than 25 meters to go when it became apparent that his lead was just big enough to hold on for the win, it seemed like maybe the race was about even more than adding to Villanova's unrivaled collection of Penn Relays wheels.

"For him to take the lead with a quarter to go, I knew I put the right person on the anchor," O'Sullivan said. "If you want it you're going to have to come get it, and there was nobody that wanted it as bad as I think Casey did today. I come to Penn every year, you see all the high school kids and they are so happy because this is their big thing. I love being here for that reason. When a local person is here anchoring for us and you have someone like Casey who would have grown up in that environment and comes to the pinnacle of what Penn Relays is all about, it's incredibly special."

Despite the wide open field entering the race and the heroics by Comber in the final stages of the race, the first-time Wildcats anchor had no hesitation when asked about his expectations entering the race. Comber had run an individual race at the Penn Relays as a high school senior but had never previously run on a relay at the meet.

"I told the other guys that I probably ran this race in my head a hundred times over the last few days," Comber said. "Every time I played it out, we won."