NJ's Dolan, Sellaro, And Murphy Go Sub 4 In Same Race

Holy Smokes!!! 

Some of New Jersey's biggest stars torched the Ashenfelter Track at Penn State on Saturday in a red-hot mile that saw three studs from the Garden State crack 4 minutes!!   

That's right, three runners who all are all NJ high school grads broke the magical 4-minute barrier in the mile in the same race at the Sykes and Sabock Challenge, and a couple more Jersey guys narrowly missed. 

How awesome is that!!

I don't think this has ever happened before!!!! 

Let's break it down.

Villanova's Sean Dolan, a redshirt sophomore who graduated from Hopewell Valley in 2019, led the Jersey Sub 4 party by placing third in 3:57.59, the 15th fastest time in the NCAA this season. Dolan (far left in photo above) went under 4 multiple times last year, and owns a mile PR of 3:57.20 from the NCAA Championships last March that places him No. 4 in Nova indoor history.

UPenn's Ray Sellaro (second from the right in this photo), crashed through the magical 4-minute barrier for the first time by placing fourth in 3:57.89, No. 19 in the NCAA this this season. That's the second fastest indoor mile in UPenn history behind the 3:57.03 run by Thomas Awad in 2016. Sellaro, a senior out of North Hunterdon High who is coached at Penn by Steve Dolan (Sean's father), had a previous PR of 4:01.40 came at Boston University in February of 2020. 

Liam Murphy, a redshirt freshman at Villanova and a 2020 graduate of Allentown High, also broke through the 4-minute mark for the first time by crossing the line in fifth in 3:59.64 to become the 44th runner in Nova's rich history of milers to crack the 4-minute mark. Murphy, whose previous PR was 4:04.81, is on the far right in the photo at the top of this article.  

Sellaro and Murphy are the 30th and 31st NJ high school grads to run Sub 4. The full list is down below.   

Villanova amazingly had three guys go under 4 in the race!! In addition to Dolan and Murphy, Nova's Charlie O'Donovan finished second in 3:57.46, which is No. 4 in Nova indoor history. How fast is Nova going to run in the 4xmile at the Penn Relays in April???       

There were several other NJ alums in the race. St. Joseph's University grad Zach Michon (Robbinsville High) placed seventh in 4:01.03, UPenn's Justin Cornetta (Hunterdon Central) finished 10th in 4:02.96, and Penn State's Drew Maher (Shore Regional) was 11th in 4:04.40.   

NJ'S SUB 4 LIST