PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Villanova finished third in its heat of the 4x400 meter relay on Friday night at the Penn Relays and advanced on time to the college section final as the second day of the world's oldest and largest track & field competition ended on a high note. The lineup of junior Sal Barretta (Whitestone, N.Y.), sophomore Ethan Walls (Ridgefield, Conn.), junior Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.) and junior Ronan O'Neill (Wilmette, Ill.) posted a time of 3:13.28 in the preliminary heats and will race in the final on Saturday evening at 5:25 p.m. to close out the Wildcats weekend at Franklin Field.
 
The nine teams that moved on to the final consisted of the top two teams in each of four heats and the next fastest overall time. Villanova was in the first heat and came in third, meaning it had to wait through three more races to see if its third place result would hold up as the lone on-time qualifier. It was fast enough by a third of a second, as the Wildcats held off a team from Rowan (3:13.62) in its own heat to earn its spot in the final.
 
Villanova was tied for sixth overall out of the 27 teams who competed in the preliminaries. Milgie and O'Neill posted splits of 48.39 and 48.66 on the final two legs of the relay. This is the third straight year that the Wildcats have qualified for the final in the college section of the 4x400 relay.
 
One field event was on Friday's event schedule for Villanova. In the college section of the triple jump, sixth year Kelechi Eziri (Charlotte, N.C.) recorded a mark of 13.51 meters and tallied a 19^th place finish.