BETHLHEM, Pa.—A young Villanova men's cross country team has spent the 2025 season to date gaining valuable experience that they can carry with them into postseason competition this year and into the rest of their careers moving forward. Their progress was evident on Friday afternoon at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional where the Wildcats finished third in the team race with 84 points. For the seventh straight year, Villanova had at least four all-region performers who were presented with medals during the post-race awards ceremony for their top 25 individual finishes in a field of more than 200 runners.
 
The team standings were tightly packed, with just 55 points separating the top five teams and 16 points between the teams that finished in third through fifth places. Led by their quartet of all-region honorees, the Wildcats scored 84 points to finish ahead of Penn State (91) and Navy (100) in the standings. Sophomore Charlie Moore (Brisbane, Australia) tallied the top Villanova finish with a seventh place showing and a time of 29:37.9 over 10,000 meters on the Goodman Campus Course at Lehigh. His time moves him into ninth place on the Wildcats all-time performance list in 10K cross country races.
 
Moore was followed closely by the junior duo of CJ Sullivan (Milton, Mass.) and Bailey Habler (Sydney, Australia) who placed 10^th and 12^th, respectively. Sullivan recorded a time of 29:52.3 and Habler crossed the finish line in 30:09.8. Each member of Villanova's leading trio has a chance to qualify as individuals for the NCAA Championships, with those selections to be announced on Saturday at 5 p.m. in a live online selection. Moore will be an automatic qualifier based on his finish in Friday's race, while Sullivan and Habler will hope for the possibility of at-large spots.
 
Sophomore Ben Thomas (Sydney, Australia) was the Wildcats fourth all-region performer with a 25^th place finish and a time of 30:30.3. He was followed by graduate student Devon Comber (Ambler, Pa.) who placed 30^th overall with a time of 30:34.4. Villanova had a split of just 55.5 seconds between its five scoring runners, while the team's sixth and seventh finishers were within 37 seconds of Comber at the finish line. Sophomore Jack Fenlon (Laois, Ireland) finished 46^th overall with a time of 31:01.5 and junior Nick Sullivan (Middletown, N.J.) came in 53^rd with a time of 31:10.8.
 
The trio of CJ Sullivan, Habler and Nick Sullivan made their debut in NCAA Cross Country regional competition as redshirt freshmen last season. CJ moved up three spots from last year to this one (13^th-10^th). Comber was running his third career regional race, while Friday's championships marked the first career regional competitions for Moore, Thomas and Fenlon.
 
Villanova has finished in the top four of the team standings at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional in 23 of the 26 years that the current format has been held.