NCAA Crown Caps Banner Season for Relay Team

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In college track & field, the distance medley relay is an indoor event that comprises four runs spanning 1200, 400, 800 and, finally, 1600 meters, respectively.

At the NCAA Indoor Championships, no team has ever run the race faster than the University of Virginia’s foursome of Wes Porter, Alex Sherman, Conor Murphy and Gary Martin. They won the first DMR national title in program history March 14 in Virginia Beach, where they broke the meet and facility records by crossing the finish line in a time of 9:15.12.

The DMR team helped the UVA men tie for sixth at the NCAA meet, the best finish in program history.

In late February, Porter, Sherman, Murphy and Martin had set a collegiate record (9:14.19) in the DMR at the Arkansas Qualifier, so their performance in Virginia Beach came as no shock. Still, the NCAA title was a magical feat they won’t soon forget.

When it became clear that Martin would cross the line first, Sherman said, “I grabbed Conor and Wes. I was shaking. Those last few moments were incredible to watch.”

After a recent practice at Lannigan Field, the runners shared their memories of how the race unfolded.

* 1200: Porter, a graduate student from Kansas City, Mo., said he started the six-lap run with two goals: “I was just trying to win my leg and just not mess up.”

He didn’t win the leg, “but I thought it was solid,” said Porter, whose time was 2:52.97. “Obviously, I’d hoped to hand off in first, but the Oregon guy was a little bit ahead, probably half a second, and then the Oklahoma State guy and I handed off together.”

Behind Porter was North Carolina’s Parker Wolfe, who’d won the 5,000 meters at the NCAA outdoor meet in 2024. “That the other goal: just try to get as far away from [Wolfe] as possible,” Porter said. “He’s good.”

* 400: At the Arkansas Qualifier, the handoff of the baton from Porter to him was “picture perfect,” Sherman said. Not so in Virginia Beach.

“This time around it was a little shaky,” Sherman said, smiling. “I left a little bit early. I had to slow down a little bit, so it definitely could have been better. I’m glad that the baton reached my hand and I was able to kind of make it without a major kind of mess-up there.”

Sherman, a senior from Newton, Mass., trains with the Cavaliers’ sprinters. Porter, Murphy and Martin are part of the distance group, so Sherman savors the times when all four are together.

“These guys are legends,” Sherman said. “Truly, being with them, I take a lot of pride in that. When we’re at Arkansas or at nationals, just going to get food and dinner with them and all that, it’s exciting to be surrounded by other members of the team outside of my sprint group.”

The Cavaliers were in third place when Sherman took the baton. They were in second, behind only Oregon, when he passed the baton to Murphy after running a 46.54 split.

“The main goal was just to get out as hard as I could to separate from the mass behind,” Sherman said, “to just allow for a more seamless handoff [and] get rid of that congestion.”

*800: The handoff from Sherman to Murphy, a graduate student from Providence, R.I., was less than flawless.

“Since there were so many teams [grouped together], I tried to get out early, and I went a little bit too early,” Murphy said, “and then when I initially went to grab [the baton], I just completely missed it. So I had to turn my hand upside down to get it back. It still went pretty smoothly. We didn’t lose any momentum really, but it was just kind of close to being dropped.”

Murphy quickly fell back into fourth place, behind Oregon, Oklahoma State and BYU, “and I was just hanging right on them basically for the entire first three laps,” he said. “Then the last lap was just kind of going all out, making sure I get the baton to Gary, moving at a decent pace so he can get off the line.”

Murphy ran the 800 in 1:47.50, and the Wahoos were in fifth place when he handed the baton to Martin.

Like Porter, Murphy has no outdoor eligibility left, so the DMR was his final race as a Cavalier. He used that as motivation.

“One hundred percent,” Murphy said. “The whole lead-up to it, that was the thought, just wanting to end on a high note and making sure I just left it all on the track for my last race in a Virginia uniform. And even during the race, that was constantly in my head, kind of just giving my all here, leave no regrets out there.”

*1600: In the ACC and at the national level, Martin’s chief rivals include UNC senior Ethan Strand.

On the final day of the NCAA indoor meet, Strand would edge Martin to win the 3000 meters in Virginia Beach. In the DMR, Virginia was in front of North Carolina when Martin took the baton. Still, it worried the other Cavaliers that they hadn’t provided Martin with more of a lead on Strand.

“That was who we thought was the biggest [threat], going into the final leg,” Porter said. “We were trying to give Gary a few seconds on him.”

A junior from Warminster, Pa., Martin said he and Strand have “a pretty good rivalry going on where I’ve got his number a couple times and he’s got me a few times. He’s a really good guy and we’re pretty friendly. So we’re rivals on the track, but I would say we get along pretty well off the track and are able to push each other.”

Once the DMR started, Martin had to wait nearly four minutes for his anchor leg to begin.

“It’s really nerve-wracking,” Martin said. “Obviously, you want to get the baton in the mix, but that same time, I think, at the start of the race you’re nervous that something’s gonna go wrong and the team’s not gonna be there. But then as it gets closer to your leg you’re getting even more nervous because you realize you’re gonna get the baton in the mix and it’s gonna be time to go.”

Once he gets the baton, however, “it definitely turns into any other race,” Martin said. “I think that for me the first half of the race is the most nerve-wracking, because you never know how you’re going to feel. I’m just like, ‘Please let me feel good. I don’t want to feel bad today, so don’t let me feel like I’m going to have a rough one.’ ”

The 1600 is essentially a mile run, and the final leg carries the most weight in the DMR, Porter said, “just because it’s so much longer than everything else. The first three legs are just trying to get it to Gary to give him a chance.”

Martin moved into third place with about 500 meters to go, but Strand soon passed him. With two laps to go, Strand took the lead, with Martin close behind him. After the two of them pulled away from the rest of the field, Martin raced past Strand on the final lap to clinch the historic victory for UVA. His time was a blistering 3:48.12.

Porter, Sherman and Murphy watched the final leg together. When they saw Martin’s late kick, “we all just started celebrating and jumping on each other,” Murphy said.

To end their college careers on such a high note elated Porter and Murphy, and their teammates shared their joy.

“They’ve been so instrumental to the program and building the distance program and just the program in general to where it is now,” Martin said. “So I feel like it was an awesome send-off for them.”

For various reasons, the men’s DMR team had fallen short of an NCAA title in previous seasons. “But this year we got the national record when we won in Arkansas,” Martin said, “and it kind of felt like all the pieces were there to just go out [at NCAAs] and cap off the pretty perfect season for the DMR.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.