STORRS, Conn.—Fifth year distance runner
Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) won his record-tying 12th conference gold medal and Villanova had four podium finishes on the final day of the 2025 BIG EAST Track and Field Championships presented by JEEP on Saturday afternoon. The Wildcats scored in 16 of the 17 events they entered on the weekend and finished fourth in the team standings with 95 points.
In addition to Murphy defending his BIG EAST title in the 1500 meters, sophomore
Dan Watcke (Hinsdale, Ill.) and junior
Sal Barretta (Whitestone, N.Y.) each made the awards podium by tallying personal bests in their respective events. Watcke finished third in the 800 meters with an outdoor PR of 1:46.63 to earn a bronze medal, while Barretta garnered his first of two All-BIG EAST honors on the day in the 400 meter hurdles. He lowered his PR set earlier this year by nearly three-quarters of a second to finish third in 53.85.
The final event of the weekend was the 4×400 meter relay and Villanova finished third to medal in the relay for the third straight year. Barretta led off for a Wildcats lineup which included sophomore
Ethan Walls (Ridgefield, Conn.) running second followed by freshman
Liam Gluck (Beavercreek, Ohio) and junior
Luke Rakowitz (Dallas, Texas) on the final two legs. The group posted Villanova’s fastest 4×400 time in 14 years with a mark of 3:09.25. Gluck and Rakowitz tallied splits of 47.40 and 47.72, respectively, in the second half of the race.
In the individual events earlier in the afternoon, Barretta and junior
Ronan O’Neill (Wilmette, Ill.) combined for a 3-4 finish in the hurdles. Barretta’s time of 53.85 lowered the identical personal best times that both he and O’Neill had recorded in the same race at Princeton just two weeks earlier. For his part, O’Neill nearly bested the effort as well with a time of 54.63 in Saturday’s final. It is the sixth time in the last seven outdoor BIG EAST meets that the Wildcats have had two or more scorers in the 400 meter hurdles, but the first time since 2015 that Villanova had two of the top four finishers in the event.
The field of competitors for the 800 meters this week was a particularly strong one and Watcke was one of four runners who beat the previous facility record in Saturday’s final. He was already in strong position to qualify for the NCAA East Preliminary in the 800 meters for the second straight year, but his time of 1:46.63 boosted Watcke into a top 10 time on the East Region descending order list. The only faster times of his career were marks of 1:46.32 and 1:46.46 during the indoor season earlier this year, with the latter of those times also coming in a BIG EAST final. Freshman
Ben Thomas (Sydney, Australia) scored two points in the 800 meters with a seventh place finish in 1:50.25.
Sophomore sprinter
Parker Turner (Los Angeles, Calif.) scored in the final of both the 100 meters and the 200 meters after he had matched or set new personal bests in each event in Friday’s preliminaries. Turner was fifth in the 100 meters in 10.65 and came in sixth in the 200 meters with a time of 21.51. It is the first time in his career he advanced to the final of two individual events at the BIG EAST Championships after nearly doing so indoors in the 60 meters and 200 meters. He earned All-BIG EAST honors indoors with a third place finish in the 200 meters and had the fastest time that did not make the final in the 60 meter dash.
Villanova posted a time below 3:10 in the 4×400 meter relay for the first time since May 8, 2011 when a lineup of
Nicoy Hines, Carlton Bowers, Christopher Kearney and
Samuel Ellison finished second at the BIG EAST Championships in 3:09.89. Saturday’s crew of Barretta, Walls, Gluck and Rakowitz had the fastest time by a Wildcats 4×400 squad since
Elvis Lewis,
John Wilsman,
Carl Hansen and
Drew Eckman ran 3:08.80 on May 27, 2006 at the NCAA East Regional meet.
A lineup of redshirt freshman
Kai Mitchell-Reiss (Portland, Ore.), Murphy, redshirt freshman
CJ Sullivan (Milton, Mass.) and senior
Devon Comber (Ambler, Pa.) finished fourth in the 4×800 meter relay in 7:28.82. Murphy had the team’s fastest split at 1:50.36 on the second leg of the race while Comber anchored the relay in 1:52.15 on the final leg. Sullivan split 1:50.72 on the third leg and came home in 55.74 on his second lap, one day after he closed in 57.08 in the final lap of the 5000 meters to earn an individual silver medal.
Villanova had a successful day in the field events on Saturday, highlighted by a sixth place finish in the discus from fifth year collegian
Temi Ajirotutu (Queens, N.Y.) in his second career BIG EAST meet. Ajirotutu, who has been a four-year offensive lineman on the Wildcats football team, took up throwing as a hobby last year and made his collegiate debut at the 2024 BIG EAST Championships when he competed in both the shot put and the discus. He extended his marks in those events in each of two outings this Spring.
It was Saturday’s performance in the discus that stood out. Ajirotutu threw 42.67 meters to lead three Wildcats with a sixth place finish out of 14 competitors. He had previously thrown 37.09 meters at the Larry Ellis Invitational two weeks ago, but he easily topped that mark on each of his first four throws Saturday. Ajirotutu began the day with a mark of 40.12 meters in the first round of attempts and increased the distance to his best mark of the day (42.67m) on his second throw. He was in fifth place at that point in the competition and never fell further than sixth the rest of the way.
Sixth year collegian
Kelechi Eziri (Charlotte, N.C.) came in sixth in the triple jump with a mark of 14.08 meters and redshirt freshman thrower
Aiden Shay (Selinsgrove, Pa.) placed seventh in the javelin with a personal best mark of 47.56 meters to round out the Villanova scorers for the day.
Selections for the NCAA East Preliminary meet in Jacksonville, Fla. will be announced this Thursday. The competition will take place the following week from May 28-31 at Hodges Stadium on the University of North Florida campus.
