PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Fifth year distance runner Josh Phillips (Belrose, Australia) became the first Villanova athlete since 1964 to win an individual Penn Relays title in a distance race as he captured the 5000 meters championship on distance night at Franklin Field with a scintillating performance on Thursday evening. Phillips and senior Haftu Strintzos (Melbourne, Australia) went 1-2 in the men's 5000 meters as the Wildcats won their 18^th individual championship overall at the world's oldest and largest track & field meet. Thursday's event schedule for Villanova featured competition in the 400 meter hurdles, the 1500 meters, the 5000 meters and the 10000 meters as the 127^th running of the Penn Relays got underway.
 
Phillips took center stage with his win in the 5000 meters. It took a personal best time of 13:45.85 for him to earn his first career Penn Relays watch. The last individual champion for the Wildcats was in 2015 when Elbert Maxwell won the championship section of the long jump. Only three of the previous 17 individual titles for Villanova had come in distance events; all three were in the 3000 meter steeplechase in successive years from 1962-64. Phillips was racing the clock and his own teammate in the home stretch of Thursday night's race and he powered through the final 200 meters and the last straightaway with the championship in hand.
 
There were implications for both the East Region descending order list this season and the Wildcats all-time record book as a result of Phillips' race. He tentatively sits at 25^th in the East Region this season – he entered the night ranked 42^nd – pending the outcome of other meets around the country this weekend. Phillips posted the fifth-fastest time in the BIG EAST this season and moved up to sixth place on Villanova's performance list in the 5000 meters. He ranks sixth in school history both overall and on the program's all-time outdoor list.
 
Strintzos was the runner-up to Phillips with a season-best time of 13:47.54. He cut more than six seconds off the time he had run in the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton just 13 days earlier to put himself in solid position on the East Region descending order list. Strintzos has qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary meet in the 10000 meters each of the last two seasons and also was a qualifier in the 5000 meters two years ago. Through the end of competition on Thursday night Strintzos ranks 10^th in the East Region in the 10K this season and moved up to 32^nd in the 5000 meters.
 
Villanova had six athletes in all competing in the 5000 meters as the Penn Relays got underway with the annual distance night carnival. Fifth year athlete Jack Fredian (Arlington Heights, Ill.) recorded a time of 14:14.44 and finished 28^th overall out of 77 competitors, while junior Cole Walker (Chadds Ford, Pa.) recorded a personal best time of 14:18.47. Walker lowered his previous top mark by exactly nine seconds with a strong finish in the final heat of the 5000 meters. Fifth year runners Ben Seiple (Westport, Conn.) and Henry Myers (Portland, Ore.) registered times of 14:26.30 and 14:36.07, respectively.
 
The final event of the night was the men's 10000 meters in which sixth year athletes Ryan Cutter (El Sobrante, Calif.) and Will Merritt (Smithsburg, Md.) each had strong races. Cutter came in third in the field with a time of 29:02.11 and cut more than seven seconds off the time he had run earlier this year at the Raleigh Relays. His time on Thursday night puts him 38^th on the East Region descending order list and seventh on the BIG EAST performance list. Merritt came in seventh in the 10K with a personal best time of 29:45.34. He lowered his lifetime best by more than a full minute in one of the top performances of his career. Merritt's previous top time had been 30:53.58 at the 2018 IC4A Championship while he was competing as an undergraduate at Mount St. Mary's.
 
Villanova got started on Thursday night with the championship section of the men's 400 meter hurdles in which junior Nicholas Mollica (Jackson, N.J.) recorded a time of 53.54 to finish fourth in his heat. The next men's event on the track was the 1500 meters in which sophomore Sean Donoghue (Dublin, Ireland) and senior Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.) were both in action. Donoghue came in second in the event with a time of 3:42.67 and Anderson recorded a personal best time of 3:47.68 while winning his heat. Fifth year runner Trevor Potts (Sparta, N.J.) was a pacer in the second heat of the 1500 meters.
 
Friday at the Penn Relays will have four men's events on the Wildcats competition schedule, including a highly-anticipated Championship of America distance medley relay which goes off at 2:05 p.m. Villanova broke a long-standing school record in the DMR indoors and is likely to run the same lineup on Friday as it did in its record-setting performance at the Alex Wilson Invitational in February. Other events on Friday's schedule include the college sections of the discus and the javelin, as well as heats of the 4x400 meter relay.