OXFORD, Miss.—Two of the seven fastest in-season times in the 1500 meters in Villanova history were recorded on Saturday evening at the Joe Walker Invitational where the trio of fifth-year senior Casey Comber (Maple Glen, Pa.), redshirt freshman Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and sophomore Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) produced sensational times in the invitational section of the event at the Ole Miss Track & Field Complex.
 
Comber recorded a time of 3:37.76 and Dolan finished in 3:38.60 in the race, which reshaped both the national leaderboard for the current season as well as the Wildcats all-time performance list. O'Donovan recorded a time of 3:40.95 as all three runners produced the metric equivalent of a sub-four minute mile for the second time in the past three weeks. The top 13 competitors in Saturday night's race at Ole Miss all posted sub-four equivalents with times faster than 3:42.20 in the 1500 meters.
 
Seven of the 10 fastest times on the NCAA Division I performance list this season came from Saturday night's race. Comber owns the fourth-fastest time on the national list, with Dolan in seventh place and Donovan sitting 19^th as races from around the country this weekend were reported. The collegiate outdoor season is not yet a month old, but athletes are already eyeing qualifying marks for the NCAA preliminary and national championship meets later in the spring as well as the potential for meeting Olympic Trials qualifying standards. Comber's time of 3:37.76 was just over a quarter of a second off the United States standard of 3:37.50.
 
The fastest that any Villanovan has run the 1500 meters while still in college is 3:32.30 which Sydney Maree recorded in a meet in West Germany in September 1981. His fastest time during the NCAA season was 3:35.30 on June 6, 1981 at the NCAA Championships in Baton Rouge, La. Comber now ranks fifth on the Wildcats performance list of times recorded during the collegiate outdoor season, while Dolan is seventh on the list. These are the fastest times that a member of a current Villanova roster has recorded in the 1500 meters since Sam McEntee was clocked in 3:36.81 at the Swarthmore Last Chance Meet on May 14, 2012.
 
Saturday night's performances were foreshadowed in a race that Comber, Dolan and O'Donovan all competed in at the Raleigh Relays on March 25. Dolan was the fastest of the Wildcats trio on that night when he cruised to a time of 3:39.45; Comber crossed the line in 3:39.67 and O'Donovan registered a mark of 3:41.73 in the same race. Those times were all personal bests until all three runners lowered their PRs for a second time in their trip to Mississippi. Comber, Dolan and O'Donovan represent three of the members of the Wildcats celebrated group of sub-four minute milers, an exclusive club which now includes 43 elite athletes.
 
Comber is a four-time All-American and a nine-time BIG EAST champion during his collegiate career. Dolan made a splash indoors earlier this year when he came in sixth in the Mile at the NCAA Championships in his first collegiate competition season. His time of 3:57.20 in the preliminary round of the national meet is the fastest mile that any Villanovan has ever run at the indoor NCAA Championships meet. O'Donovan is one of five athletes from Leevale Athletic Club in his hometown of Cork City, Ireland to come to Villanova and became a sub-four miler. The group includes Wildcats head coach Marcus O'Sullivan and O'Donovan's high school coach, Ken Nason. O'Donovan is one of at least 30 members of the "Irish Pipeline" of track & field athletes who have chosen to run for Villanova over the last 70-plus years.