RALEIGH, N.C.—Redshirt freshman Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and fifth-year senior Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.) each broke 3:40 in the 1500 meters at the Raleigh Relays on Thursday evening as a group of Villanova middle distance and distance runners tallied some of the team's best performances of the past several years. Dolan and Comber each beat the existing facility record at Paul H. Derr Track on a full day of competition for the Wildcats on the first of three days at the annual meet hosted by North Carolina State.
 
The trio of Dolan, Comber and Charlie O'Donovan (Dublin, Ireland) each ran the metric equivalent of a sub-four-minute mile in the 1500 meters. They all have gone below four minutes indoors in the Mile during their collegiate careers, but their races on Thursday were the first time that each had run a 1500 meters race in under 3:42.20 which is the equivalent of the sub-four standard. Dolan and Comber eclipsed the standing facility record of 3:39.75 which had stood for more than 30 years since being recorded by Abdi Bile of George Mason in 1987. Later that same year, Bile won gold in the 1500 meters at the World Championships.
 
All four of the Villanova entries in the 1500 meters – fifth-year senior Nick Steele (Harvard, Mass.) also ran for the Wildcats – raced in the final and fastest heat of the event just before 6:30 p.m. on Thursday evening. Making the performances that much more impressive is that Dolan and O'Donovan were each running in the first outdoor race of their collegiate careers. Dolan was on track to redshirt as a true freshman in 2020, while O'Donovan is now a junior academically who redshirted the 2019 outdoor season. O'Donovan and Steele were also coming off 10K cross country races in the NCAA Championships just 10 days earlier.
 
Dolan crossed the finish line in 3:39.45 after a sizzling final lap of 54.94. His finishing time is the fastest by a Villanova runner during the collegiate season since Jordy Williamsz posted a time of 3:39.43 in the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton on April 17, 2015. Comber was on Dolan's heels in second place with a time of 3:39.67, while O'Donovan finished eighth in 3:41.73 and Steele posted a time of 3:50.43. Comber began to make a move within a tight pack of runners approaching the bell, with his split of 58.56 on the penultimate lap the fastest in the field. He was just in front of the pack at the bell and he pulled away with Dolan over the final lap as the pair wound up finishing just over a second ahead of the chase pack.
 
Juniors Haftu Strintzos (Victoria, Australia) and Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) each ran in the fastest section of the 5000 meters later Thursday night and broke 13:50 in the fastest races of their careers. Strintzos, like O'Donovan a junior in school who was running his first collegiate outdoor race, raced to a seventh place finish with a time of 13:47.32 while Phillips crossed the finish line ninth in 13:48.83. Their times were the first under 14 minutes by Wildcats athletes since Patrick Tiernan's time of 13:27.07 at the NCAA Championships in 2016.
 
Strintzos moved onto the all-time Villanova performance list in the 5000 meters at No. 7, while Phillips rose to No. 9 on the program's all-time outdoor list. Fifth-year senior Paul Nichols (Latham, N.Y.) was an earlier competitor in the 5000 meters and cut more than 11 seconds off his previous personal best with a time of 14:34.04. He raced in the first section of the 5K and won his heat by just under two seconds over a runner from Youngstown State and the rest of the field in that section.
 
Field events made up the early portion of Thursday's meet schedule, with the Wildcats competing in the pole vault, the shot put and the javelin. Freshman thrower Nick Coffey (Cranston, R.I.) made his collegiate debut in the javelin and threw for a lifetime best mark of 59.02 meters on his first attempt. That wound up being good enough for a second place finish in his flight and 11^th overall out of 23 competitors. Coffey instantly put himself onto Villanova's all-time performance list in the javelin for the current implement which debuted in 1999. He sits ninth on that list after one collegiate performance, pushing redshirt freshman teammate Joe DiDario down to 10^th after DiDario made the list in his own collegiate debut last week at the Wildcats home meet. Freshman Andrew Grinnell (New Milford, Conn.) threw for 53.63 meters while improving his mark from last week's season opener by more than two meters.
 
Senior thrower Billy Loewen (Sparta, N.J.) finished 13^th overall in the shot put with a mark of 15.43 meters. He recorded the mark on the first of his three attempts and came within five centimeters of matching his top collegiate mark set indoors earlier this year. Fifth-year senior Thomas Conboy (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) competed in the pole vault and came in fourth after clearing the bar at a height of 4.69 meters. He got off to a good start, entering the competition with the bar at 4.54 meters and making it over that height as well as 4.69 meters on his first try. He missed on three attempts at a height of 4.84 meters which would have nearly matched his personal best of 4.85 meters which he accomplished twice during the 2019 outdoor campaign.
 
The five events on the Villanova schedule for Friday are the high jump (10 a.m.); the discus (1:30 p.m.); the triple jump (2 p.m.); the 400 meters (4:10 p.m.); and the 10000 meters (10 p.m.).