PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—The anchor leg of the Championship of America distance medley relay didn't give up any secrets – or clues to its eventual outcome – until there were 50 meters to go in a race that was an instant classic. Villanova senior Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) powered through the last stretch of the straightaway, charging past Georgetown on the inside and Virginia on the outside before spreading his arms wide in his signature victory pose as he crossed the finish line with the Wildcats record 103^rd relay championship at the world's oldest and largest track & field competition.
 
This is the 26^th time overall – another meet record – and the first time since 2018 that Villanova has won the Championship of America title in the distance medley relay. The winning team consisted of fifth year collegian Sean Dolan (Ewing, N.J.), sophomore Luke Rakowitz (Dallas, Texas), freshman Dan Watcke (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Murphy. Both the Wildcats and their BIG EAST rival Hoyas held the lead during the final lap before Murphy delivered the title with a winning time of 9:35.90. Georgetown was less than half a second behind (9:36.37), with Virginia (9:36.61) and Oregon (9:36.89) also finishing less than a second off Villanova's winning pace.
 
In this world-famous meet where each race is its own unique spectacle, it can be said that no event captures the allure and the glory of winning a Penn Relays championship quite like the distance medley relay. And so it was in the days leading up to Friday's race that much of the talk about the Wildcats – defending champions in the 4xMile relay which will be run on Saturday afternoon – centered around the team being the favorite in what turned out to be a stacked distance medley relay.
 
Villanova head coach Marcus O'Sullivan, a six-time Penn Relays champion as a collegiate star for the Wildcats who has now guided his teams to 10 Championship of America relay titles, was asked how he prepared his runners for a race with so much hype and in which Villanova was considered such a strong odds-on favorite.
 
"I have never said so little to a team," O'Sullivan said. "I confidently felt we could get it done, but I've also seen us not get it done. You know nothing is going to be handed to you. I absolutely knew Georgetown was going to be there and I knew UVA was going to be there. It was one of those races that could have gone either way. I felt we had a really good team and a very mature team going out, a very mature team knowing they had a job to do."
 
Dolan and Murphy ran on a winning Championship of America relay together for the second straight year, although this was far from your typical Wildcats lineup. It was Dolan who led off the race rather than occupying his customary spot on the 800 meter leg which hands off to the anchor. Following him were a pair of up-and-coming runners in Rakowitz and Watcke who were running in a Championship of America race for the first time in their careers. And finally Murphy, whose picture crossing the finish line on the anchor leg of last year's 4xMile relay graces the cover of this year's program for the 128^th running of the Penn Relays.
 
"There was a real strategy behind why I felt this was our best team," O'Sullivan said. "I had no regrets, no quandaries of should I do this, should I do that. I genuinely thought this was it, so I was very semi-relaxed but nostalgic in a way to get to this point. There was a purpose of why Sean was on it. I said that if this race goes point to point he'll be fine but if it walks – which it did – I felt he would be the best person to counteract and be able to bring it home so we wouldn't be out of the race."
 
Dolan led off with a split of 3:00.67 on the 1200 meter leg and had his team in the lead ahead of Virgina and Oregon at the first exchange. Rakowitz ran 47.67 for 400 meters and Watcke closed strong with an 800 meter split of 1:48.34. Murphy brought the race home with a 3:59.63 anchor leg. None of the other squads in the eight-team field had a sub-four split over the final 1600 meters.
 
"That was for a reason [Dolan running leadoff] to make sure Luke got a decent run," O'Sullivan said. "Luke got a really good run. It can all come back at the very end but I didn't want Liam to be at a position where he had to run 40 yards to catch up and now he's at a disadvantage. I don't know why [he felt so good about the younger runners Luke and Dan] other than Charlie [O'Donovan] was very gracious and was with them warming up."
 
O'Sullivan has been a part of five Penn Relays titles in the distance medley relay, including as a collegiate freshman in 1981 when he ran the 800 meter leg on a championship team. He has guided the Wildcats to DMR titles in 2009, 2011, 2018 and now 2024.