JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—It was business as usual and return trips to Oregon for the Villanova distance duo of Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) and Marco Langon (Raritan, N.J.) at the NCAA East Preliminary on Friday night. Murphy qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 1500 meters and Langon did the same in the 5000 meters as the pair of Wildcats stalwarts booked their spots at the national meet which takes place from June 11-14 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. This is the third straight outdoor NCAA Championships berth for Murphy and the second in a row for Langon.
 
Competition at the NCAA East Preliminary – and its counterpart in the West region – serve as the early rounds of the NCAA Championships and it seems to be the case in virtually every event that the field of athletes has continually gotten stronger over the years. Such a backdrop for these events makes it even more imperative for athletes to not leave their championship fates up to the chance of qualifying on time in either the first round or later heats. The top five finishers in each heat of the 1500 meters and 5000 meters on Friday night at Visit Jax Track at Hodges Stadium were the ones who were assured of automatic berths in Eugene.
 
Murphy and Langon made sure – seemingly with ease – to put themselves in the top five of their respective races. Ironically, it was the second heat of the 1500 meters which Murphy raced in and the opening heat of the 5000 meters which Langon would eventually win that were the slower of the two sections in each event. Murphy finished fourth in his 1500 meter quarterfinal heat with a time of 3:44.83 and Langon later won the first semifinal heat of the 5000 meters in 14:06.40. They each strode confidently off the track after their races finished, stopping for their pictures with the oversized tickets that symbolize their entry to the NCAA Championships.
 
Early in the second heat of the 1500 meters it was Murphy who set the pace at the front of the pack. He moved to the lead after the first 400 meters and was the intermediate leader until the start of the bell lap. By that point the lead pack was a quintet which included Murphy along with Ethan Strand of North Carolina, Trent McFarland of Michigan State, Ferenc Kovacs of Harvard and Matin Segurola of Indiana. There was less separation at the finish line between those five runners (0.71 seconds) than there was between the fifth place finisher (Segurola) and the sixth place finisher who led the chase pack (Jaouad Khchina of South Carolina).
 
Murphy has qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 1500 meters in each of the last two years and advanced to the final in Eugene both times. He also reached the final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon last summer. Murphy has run a total of five races at Hayward Field.
 
One of the enduring images from last summer's U.S. Olympic Team Trials was a shot of Murphy and Strand crossing the finish line virtually in unison in the semifinal round of the 1500 meters. They smiled and pointed at each other as they crossed the line, both having qualified for the final two days later. Intentionally or not, there was an eerily similar callback to that exact moment in the closing strides of the 5000 meters on Friday night.
 
By the time the lead pack of runners moved into the final straightaway, Langon and Strand had built just a bit of a cushion between themselves and the rest of the field. They were each gaining steam in the final 50 meters as they shot coy looks at each other with their spots in the top five – and the NCAA Championships – well in hand. By the time the pair crossed the finish line, Langon a hundredth of a second in front of Strand (14:06.40 – 14:06.41), they each pointed at the other in a remarkably similar shot to the one Murphy and Strand shared at the Trials last year.
 
There was far less separation in the pack of 24 runners early on in this first semifinal race, as each athlete in the field stayed tightly together through the first 2000 meters. It was at that point that Bernard Cheruiyot of Tulane – in his first season of collegiate outdoor eligibility – broke away from the field and established a quickly widening gap between himself and everyone else behind him. He was 13 seconds ahead of Langon with three laps to go and still had a gap of more than nine seconds with two laps remaining before the field caught up to him. Cheruiyot wound up 10^th at the finish line.
 
Langon took up position at the front of the chase pack after Cheruiyot made his initial move at the 2K mark. That pack was eight runners strong with 1200 meters remaining and Langon never slipped out of that front spot. He passed Cheruiyot just before the bell rang for the final lap, with the eventual automatic qualifiers from the heat being Langon, Strand, Justin Wachtel from Virginia (14:07.91), Toby Gillen from Ole Miss (14:08.45) and Colton Sands from North Carolina (14:08.96).
 
The second semifinal heat of the 5K was a much faster one and it featured three Villanova runners in action, led by redshirt freshman CJ Sullivan (Milton, Mass.) who ran a gutsy race in which he surged from near the back of the pack early on almost into a qualifying position to advance. He wound up eighth at the finish line with a time of 14:07.24. The final qualifier on time was the seventh place finisher in the heat who had a time of 14:00.14
 
It was an impressively steady and poised race from Sullivan in his first season of collegiate competition and his career debut at the NCAA East Prelims. Consider that he was in 16^th place out of 24 runners at the midpoint of the race and remained in 14^th place with a mile to go. He was 12^th with two laps left and 11^th at the bell before moving up another three spots just in the final lap. Sullivan was the runner-up in the 5K to Langon at the BIG EAST Championships earlier this month and will be well-positioned to continue his ascension as a regional and national contender in the distance events going into next season.
 
Senior Devon Comber (Ambler, Pa.) and freshman Charlie Moore (Brisbane, Australia) finished exactly one second apart in 14^th and 15^th places in the second heat. Comber was clocked in 14:22.57 and Moore in 14:23.57. It was the third career race at the NCAA East Preliminary for Comber, who qualified in the 5000 meters last season and the 1500 meters two years ago. Moore only made his collegiate debut for the Wildcats on March 27 at the Raleigh Relays and had quick success in four starts in the 5000 meters during the outdoor season.
 
Villanova had sophomore middle distance runner Dan Watcke (Hinsdale, Ill.) running on Friday night in the quarterfinal round of the 800 meters. Watcke came in fifth in the last of three heats with a time of 1:47.49 and narrowly missed advancing in an ending to the race that was so tight it almost appeared it would be a photo finish. The first four runners across the line had a gap of just .06 between them and Watcke in fifth place was just a quarter second off the lead at the finish line.