CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—Junior distance runner Haftu Strintzos (Melbourne, Australia) lowered his personal best in the 10000 meters to 28:34.41 and tallied the fourth-fastest time in school history in the event at Lannigan Field on Friday night. Strintzos and a trio of Villanova middle distance runners stood out on the second day of competition in the Virginia Challenge, which will wrap up on Saturday afternoon.
 
Strintzos beat his previous personal best in the 10000 meters by more than 16 seconds and finished first in a field of 31 runners in Friday's race. His time of 28:34.41 ranks in the top 30 nationally and is No. 12 in the East region for the current season pending the outcome of other meets around the country this weekend. Strintzos now owns four of the 10 fastest 10K races ever by a Villanovan, with his time on Friday trailing only the school record of 27:59.74 held by Patrick Tiernan since 2016 and two times of 28-plus minutes run by Sydney Maree during the 1980 collegiate season.
 
The other highlight for the Wildcats on Friday night was the middle distance trio of senior Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland), junior Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) and freshman Sean Donoghue (Dublin, Ireland). O'Donovan and Dolan each ran the metric equivalent of sub-four minute miles in the 1500 meters and finished with nearly identical times of 3:41.84 and 3:41.86, respectively. They will each rank in the neighborhood of the top 30 times in the East region this season when the weekend is over. Donoghue had a strong race for the second straight week and lowered his PR in the 1500 meters to 3:42.45, lowering by nearly 2.5 seconds the mark of 3:44.93 that he had only set last weekend at the Larry Ellis Invitational.
 
Earlier on Friday afternoon sophomore sprinter Jakob Kunzer (George Town, Grand Cayman) and graduate Richie Bush (Lawnside, N.J.) registered season-best times of 49.23 and 49.56, respectively, in the 400 meters. Graduate Michael Troup (Doylestown, Pa.) was also in action for the Wildcats, running a time of 11.29 in the preliminary heats of the 100 meters and recording a long jump of 7.23 meters.
 
Sophomore thrower Nick Coffey (Cranford, R.I.) surpassed 60 meters in the javelin for the first time this season and registered a mark of 60.25 meters to begin the day for Villanova on Friday morning. Sophomore Andrew Grinnell (New Milford, Conn.) followed him with a throw of 57.63 meters and junior Joe DiDario (Ocean Township, N.J.) had a distance of 56.34 meters for the day. In the discus, freshman Tristan Bolinsky (Gordon, Pa.) recorded a mark of 46.91 meters and senior Riley LaRiviere (Telford, Pa.) had a throw of 44.08 meters.
 
The other field event in action for the Wildcats was senior pole vaulter Jim Keys (Herndon, Va.) who cleared the bar at a height of 4.51 meters on his first attempt.
 
Saturday's event schedule for Villanova includes the 200 meters, the 400 meter hurdles, the 800 meters and the triple jump and the shot put. Additional members of the team will be competing locally in the Widener Invitational.