BOSTON, Mass.—In a race designed to impact the national leaderboard in the distance medley relay Villanova recorded a time of 11:01.21 in its first DMR of the season at the Track & Tennis Center in Boston on Friday night. A lineup of sophomore Emma McGill (Lebanon, N.J.), freshman Micah Trusty (Philadelphia, Pa.), senior Madison Martinez (Gahanna, Ohio) and graduate student Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) moved into 12^th place on the NCAA Division I performance list with their time.
 
McGill led off the race with a split of 3:24.87 over the first 1200 meters and was followed by Trusty who ran the 400 meter leg of her first collegiate DMR in 56.22. The final two legs of the race featuring Martinez and Olivere were particularly impressive, with Martinez running 2:03.94 for the 800 meter leg and Olivere anchoring the Wildcats with a split of 4:36.20 for the final 1600 meters. Villanova's time of 11:01.21 was good for a third place finish in a strong field which featured Washington and West Virginia among others.
 
A big move by Martinez on the final lap of the 800 meter leg pushed the Wildcats into third place at the final exchange. Her split of 2:03.94 is the 14^th known split below 2:04 on an 800 meter relay leg in school history. Olivere also stepped up with a big anchor leg, running 4:36.20 which is the equivalent of roughly a 4:37.8 mile; by comparison Olivere's lifetime best in open mile races is 4:41.59 set just over a year ago in January 2022.
 
Entering the race the entire Villanova lineup had combined to run in just four collegiate DMR races, including two by Olivere during her freshman season in 2019 and one each one season ago by McGill (indoors) and Martinez (outdoors) who had each previously run 800 meter legs. Friday's race was the second competition in the past week for Martinez and Trusty, who each raced individually and in the 4x400 meter relay at Penn State last weekend.
 
With hopes of a fast race developing, the teams were led by a pacer on the opening leg whose target was 2:48 for the first 1000 meters. The field beat that benchmark by four seconds as Washington went out quickly and surged past the pacer after 800 meters. The rest of the pack – which included West Virginia, Villanova, Kennesaw State, meet host Boston University and Yale – followed behind as first McGill and eventually Trusty kept the Wildcats within striking distance of the chase pack through the first two legs.
 
Washington kept its distance from the rest of the field and took over the season's national lead with an NCAA record time of 10:46.62. The move by Martinez over the final 200 meters of the 800 meter leg brought Kennesaw State, Villanova and West Virginia nearly even at the handoff to the anchors. Kennesaw State made the exchange just a quarter of a second ahead of the Wildcats according to official splits following the race, with West Virginia just a step off the pace.
 
Olivere and the West Virginia anchor eventually put a gap between themselves and Kennesaw State over the final 1600 meters. The Mountaineers finished second with a time of 10:59.09, followed by Villanova (11:01.21), Kennesaw State (11:05.14), Boston University (11:19.21) and Yale (11:20.15).
 
Friday night's race kicked off a brief two-day stay for the Wildcats at the Bruce Lehane Scarlet & White Invite. All four Villanova relay runners will be in action on Saturday in their individual events, including Martinez and Trusty in the 800 meters along with Olivere in the mile and McGill in the 3000 meters. The first of those events are heats of the mile beginning at 12:10 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. All of the action can be streamed live on Flotrack.