AUSTIN, Texas—Junior distance runner
Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) put a resounding finish on his collegiate season with an eighth place finish in the 1500 meters at the NCAA Championships on Friday night. Comber crossed the finish line in 3:42.77 at Mike A. Meyers Stadium to notch the second-fastest time of his career and become an All-American outdoors for the first time.
Friday night's championship race was the seventh time in the last nine years that Villanova has had a runner in the final of the 1500 meters. Comber went stride-for-stride with the top runners in the country, settling in at an honest pace for the first half of the race before picking up his speed and putting himself in contention with one lap to go.
The entire field of 12 runners was within striking distance of the lead at the bell. Comber made a strong push after pacing the field with a split of 60.64 on his second-to-last lap around the track. He then closed in 55.52, more than six-tenths of a second faster than in his last lap from the semifinals on Wednesday afternoon. The championship race on Friday was run in 94-degree heat, with a heat index of 96 at the start of the race.
Less than 1.5 seconds separated the top nine runners at the finish line, and really the race was even closer than that small split suggests. The seventh through ninth place finishers crossed the line less than one-tenth of a second part, with Comber holding off Sam Worley of Texas – 3:42.77 to 3:42.81 – for the final scoring spot and a first team All-America honor. The championship, meanwhile, was determined with times being split down to the thousandths of a second to break a virtual tie between Yared Nuguse of Notre Dame and Justine Kiprotich of Michigan State.
Villanova has had more success in the 1500 meters than in any other individual track event at the NCAA Championships. Comber's eighth-place finish is the Wildcats best since
Jordy Williamsz came in fifth in 2015, and Villanova has now had 33 All-Americans in all in the 1500 meters with additions of Comber and junior
Logan Wetzel (Saline, Mich.) to that list. Wetzel came in 20
th overall in the national semifinals on Wednesday and will earn honorable mention All-America recognition when those honors are officially announced early next week.
Comber was the runner-up at the indoor NCAA Championships in the Mile earlier this year and has put himself into elite company among the Wildcats all-time greats. He is the seventh Villanova men's runner to be a first team All-American in the Mile indoors and the 1500 meters outdoors in the same year. The other Wildcats on that list are Marty Liquori (1971); Eamonn Coghlan (1976); current head coach
Marcus O'Sullivan (1982); Sean O'Neill (1987); Ken Nason (1995); and Jordy Williamsz (2014).
Along the way to reaching Friday night's 1500 meter final, Comber was an automatic qualifier through the national first round, quarterfinal and semifinal heats. The first two of those races came at the NCAA East Preliminary in Jacksonville two weeks ago. Comber was the BIG EAST champion in the 1500 meters and also anchored Villanova to a conference title in the 4x800 meter relay as the Wildcats won the BIG EAST team championship.
During the indoor season, Comber was a first team All-American in the Mile and posted the first sub-four minute time of his career with a PR of 3:57.80 in Boston on February 9. He also was the BIG EAST champion in the Mile and the runner-up in the 5000 meters in addition to running the third leg of the champion 4x800 meter relay. He was named the Outstanding Track Performer at the indoor conference meet.
