LEESBURG, Va.—The beginning of the postseason schedule for the men's cross country team will be both familiar and challenging for Villanova, which heads into Friday morning's BIG EAST Cross Country Championships presented by JEEP ranked first in the Mid-Atlantic Region and 17^th nationally. The men's race at Morven Park gets underway at 10:50 a.m. and can be seen on the BIG EAST Digital Network on FloSports presented by Invesco QQQ. The women's race precedes the men at 10 a.m. and the championships will conclude with an awards ceremony beginning at approximately 11:40 a.m.
 
Villanova is one of three nationally-ranked BIG EAST teams entering the conference championships. Following the Wildcats in the latest USTFCCCA Top 30 poll are Georgetown (No. 21) and Butler (No. 27). Villanova has finished in front of Georgetown twice this year at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational and the Princeton Fall Classic but will be competing at the same meet as Butler for the first time since last year's national championships.
 
Recent history has been remarkably close between the top three teams in the league. Last year the Bulldogs finished six points in front of the Wildcats to claim the BIG EAST team title, but Villanova turned the tables at the NCAA Championships and finished seven points in front of Butler for a top 20 team finish. This season, the Wildcats came in 30 points ahead of Georgetown at the Wisconsin meet and defeated the Hoyas by 17 points at Princeton in meets that had a much larger field than the nine-team BIG EAST meet will have.
 
Fifth year Villanova star Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) is the BIG EAST defending individual champion from last season and was this year's BIG EAST Male Athlete of the Week after each of his first two races. He finished third overall at Nuttycombe and was the individual runner-up at Princeton where his finishing time of 22:36.8 was the second-fastest in school history on an 8K cross country course. Murphy has also been the individual champion at each of the last two NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional meets, with that event next up on the Wildcats schedule after the BIG EAST Championships this week.
 
There is star power beyond Murphy in the Villanova lineup, beginning with junior Marco Langon (Raritan, N.J.) who has been an All-BIG EAST performer in each of his first two collegiate seasons. Langon finished seventh at the conference championships a year ago and has been in strong form this year as the Wildcats second finisher behind Murphy in each of his starts. He was fourth overall at Princeton and less than 10 seconds off Murphy's pace.
 
Six of the 10 runners who are expected to form the Villanova lineup on Friday will be making their BIG EAST Championships debut. One of the top up-and-coming runners on the team to this point in the season has been redshirt freshman Bailey Habler (Sydney, Australia) who is coming off a top-10 finish (ninth) at Princeton and has been the Wildcats third runner in both of the team's meets so far this year.
 
Fellow redshirt freshman CJ Sullivan (Milton, Mass.) has also come on strong during the season, while senior veterans Devon Comber (Ambler, Pa.) and Sean Donoghue (Dublin, Ireland) are each capable of running near the top of the lineup.  
 
Villanova has finished first or second in the team standings at the BIG EAST Championships a total of 16 times over the years, including eight times in the last 13 seasons. Those finishes include eight team titles, the most recent of which came in 2022. There have also been 14 individual conference champions from the Wildcats, including Murphy last year and his head coach Marcus O'Sullivan who was the 1983 champion as a Villanova junior.