GENEVA, Ohio—A balanced team effort across the board in the individual events and a sweep of the relays was a winning combination for the men's track & field team as Villanova captured its third straight team title at the 2020 indoor BIG EAST Track & Field Championships presented by Jeep at SPIRE Institute on Monday afternoon.  The depth of the Wildcats roster was on full display, as the team recorded at least one awards podium finish (top-three) in 14 of the 18 events that made up the meet program.  Villanova finished with 186 points and came in 23 points ahead of runner-up Marquette and the rest of the seven-team field.  In addition to winning all three relay races at the meet, the Wildcats had one individual champion in sophomore Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) who finished first in the triple jump. 
 
This is the sixth time in the last seven years and the ninth time in all that the Wildcats have won the men's team title at the indoor conference championships.  Head coach Marcus O'Sullivan and his staff were voted the BIG EAST Coaching Staff of the Year by their peers.  O'Sullivan is now a 16-time BIG EAST Coach of the Year during his tenure as Villanova head coach.  That total includes 13 honors with the men's program and three honors from his first two seasons when he was also the head coach of the women's program. 
 
A deep senior class for the Wildcats came forward during the awards ceremony to accept the team championship trophy.  The group included distance runners Jacob Bonanotte (Arlington Heights, Ill.); Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.); Andrew Marston (Wayne, Pa.); Paul Nichols (Latham, N.Y.); Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.); and Logan Wetzel (Saline, Mich.); sprinters Konrad Bayer (Naperville, Ill.) and Dan Powers (Chadds Ford, Pa.); pole vaulter Thomas Conboy (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.); and throwers Jadyn Anczarski (Ringtown, Pa.) and Chika Nwachukwu (Lawrence, N.J.). 
 
The championship was decided by a dramatic swing in the team scores when results were posted from the 3000 meters and the shot put.  Villanova trailed Marquette by a 155-129 margin with the shot put nearing conclusion on the infield.  The only individual race left on the track was the 3000 meters, which was to be followed by the 4x800 and 4x400 meter relays to conclude the meet. 
 
Sophomore Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) led a 3-4-5-7 finish by the Wildcats in the 3000 meters.  He crossed the finish line in 8:17.34 in an exciting ending to a distance race that saw four Villanova shirts separated by less than 2.5 seconds at the finish line.  Redshirt freshman Haftu Strintzos (Victoria, Australia) was fourth in 8:18.76, Comber was fifth in 8:18.99 and Marston placed seventh in 8:19.53.  The quartet combined to score 17 team points. 
 
Within minutes of the 3K race ending and with the women's 4x800 meter relay beginning on the track, the men's shot put scores were officially entered into the results.  Junior Billy Loewen (Sparta, N.J.) came in second with a throw of 15.45 meters as the Wildcats rising group of throwers combined for a 2-4-5-6 showing.  Anczarski was fourth with a lifetime best mark of 14.06 meters, Nwachukwu was fifth with a throw of 14.01 meters and freshman Eduardo Perez (Appling, Ga.) tallied his top mark of the season with a throw of 13.56 meters.  The group scored 36 team points in the meet, including 20 in the shot put on Monday and 16 in the weight throw during competition on the first day of the meet Sunday afternoon. 
 
In just a few minutes Villanova had turned its 26-point deficit into a commanding 166-155 edge over Marquette with the relays remaining.  Needing only to finish ahead of the Golden Eagles in the 4x800 meter relay to clinch the team title, the Wildcats still had some magic left in them. 
 
First the 4x800 squad of freshman Miller Anderson (West Harford, Conn.), sophomore Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland), Steele and Wetzel broke a seven-year old SPIRE Institute record by winning with a time of 7:31.34.  All the attention was then on the 4x400 meter relay, a two-section final which was the very last event of the meet.  With the team titles wrapped up and the first section of the 4x400 relay completed, both the men's and women's teams paced around the infield and broke into cheers as the quartet of junior Richie Bush (Lawnside, N.J.), Bayer, junior Keegan Hughes (Malvern, Pa.) and freshman Anthony Brodie (Bronx, N.Y.) surged to a stirring victory with a time of 3:12.51 and a margin of victory of just 0.33 seconds over DePaul.
 
Brodie was unofficially recorded with a split of 45 seconds and change on the anchor leg of the 4x400 relay.  Earlier in the day he came in second in the final of the 400 meters with a time of 47.09.  Despite being seeded in the second and slower heat of the two-section timed final, Brodie came within 0.15 seconds of claiming the conference title in the event.  Two other individual runner-up finishes on the final day of the meet included Wetzel finishing second in the 800 meters with a time of 1:50.27 and O'Donovan closing strong to place second in the final of the Mile in 4:20.17.  Bush came in fourth in the final of the 200 meters in 21.87 and Hughes was sixth in the final of the 400 meters in 48.96. 
 
The triple jump was the first field event contested on Monday and Cunningham earned his first career BIG EAST title with a winning mark of 15.39 meters on the third of his six attempts for the day.  Junior Vincent Sengelmann (Boise, Idaho) finished fourth in the event with a jump of 14.14 meters.  Villanova also did well in the high jump as three competitors combined to score 15 points.  Junior Jacob Kelly (Longmeadow Mass.) and sophomore Peter Willis (St. Charles, Ill.) each made the awards podium with second and third place finishes, respectively.  Willis made it over the bar at a height of 2.05 meters, Willis was successful at 1.95 meters and junior Ryan Tompkins (Farmingdale, N.J.) came in eighth with a height of 1.90 meters.