NEW YORK—For the second straight week and the fourth time in his career senior triple jumper Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) has been named the BIG EAST Men's Field Athlete of the Week. The latest honor for Cunningham was announced by the conference office on Thursday afternoon and comes after one of the top performances of his career at Clemson last week.
 
Cunningham competed in the Tiger Paw Invite and turned in a lifetime best mark of 16.12 meters in the triple jump. It was the first time in his career that Cunningham surpassed 16 meters and he surged into a tie for 11^th place on the NCAA Division I Qualifying List for this season. The top 16 declared athletes in each event will be selected for the NCAA Championships next month and Cunningham has put himself on the cusp of a bid to the national meet for the first time.
 
There was significance to Cunningham's career-best jump last week both nationally, within the BIG EAST and in Villanova record book. He extended his lead atop the BIG EAST performance list this season and moved into second place in Wildcats history. Cunningham passed former Villanova standout Jermaine Deans by a single centimeter on the program's performance list. Deans was a three-time BIG EAST champion and a seven-time All-BIG EAST performer in the jumps during his career and had been at No. 2 on the Wildcats performance list since the 1998 indoor season. His collegiate PR of 16.11 meters was set at the IC4A Championship on March 8, 1998.
 
Last week's performance by Cunningham made him the first Villanova athlete since Deans to record a jump longer than 16 meters. His mark of 16.12 meters is the fourth-longest indoors in the Wildcats record book, trailing only three longer jumps by school record holder Nate Cooper during the 1978 and 1979 indoor seasons.
 
Cunningham first recorded a mark of 15.89 meters during the trial round at the Tiger Paw Invite last week. He competed in the second of two flights and registered that mark on his third attempt after fouling on each of his first two times down the runway. The distance of 15.89 meters was itself a PR for Cunningham, who had jumped 15.79 meters exactly one week earlier in his season debut at the Columbia Challenge. He put himself into the BIG EAST lead for the season and was named the BIG EAST Men's Field Athlete of the Week on February 9 for that performance.
 
Cunningham was in third place in the competition at the Tiger Paw Invite after his first three jumps and moved on to the final round for three more attempts. He had fallen to fourth place going into his final jump before he unfurled his biggest jump yet on his last attempt of the day.
 
The next competition for the Wildcats is the BIG EAST Championships in Chicago on February 25-26. Cunningham was the 2020 indoor BIG EAST champion in the triple jump and was named the league's Men's Field Athlete of the Week twice during that season. He is a three-time All-BIG EAST performer overall during his career and qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary meet outdoors last Spring for the first time in his career.