VILLANOVA, Pa.—An exciting weekend with several milestones is ahead for the Villanova track & field teams as the 2022 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships get underway at the Birmingham Crossplex on Friday afternoon. For the first time since 2014 the Wildcats have both a men's and a women's competitor in the 800 meters, while Villanova will also have a triple jumper at the NCAA Championships for the first time in 25 years.
 
Graduate middle distance runner McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) is an NCAA qualifier for the second straight year in the 800 meters, while sophomore middle distance runner Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) is running the 800 meters this season after being a national qualifier in the Mile a year ago. Senior triple jumper Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) is the Wildcats first NCAA qualifier in that event since countryman Jermaine Deans (1997-00) was a qualifier in both the long jump and the triple jump during his collegiate career.
 
First up for Villanova during the weekend will be the preliminary heats of the men's 800 meters on Friday at 4:45 p.m. Central time (5:45 p.m. Eastern time). Dolan is running in the first of two heats, with the top three finishers in each heat and the next two fastest times advancing to the final. Later in the night are the heats of the women's 800 meters at 7:45 p.m. Central time (8:45 p.m. Eastern time); Keegan is in the second heat. The finals of the 800 meters are on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Central time (men's) and 7:30 p.m. Central time (women's). Cunningham will be the first athlete to compete on Saturday, as the men's triple jump competition gets underway at 3:45 p.m. Central.
 
Cunningham is having the best season of his career and passed Deans in the triple jump by a centimeter to take over second place on the Wildcats all-time performance list. He recorded a lifetime best mark of 16.12 meters during the Tiger Paw Invite at Clemson on February 12 to earn his NCAA qualifying spot. Cunningham's mark is the fourth-longest indoor triple jump in school history and puts him behind only two-time national champion Nate Cooper in the program's record book. Deans' collegiate personal best in the triple jump was a nearly identical 16.11 meters recorded during the 1998 indoor season.
 
This is the second straight year that Dolan and Keegan will compete at the indoor NCAA Championships. Dolan set the indoor school record in the 800 meters at the BIG EAST Championships last weekend when he won the conference title with a time of 1:47.53. He beat John Marshall's previous indoor mark of 1:47.84 which had stood for more than 40 years since 1982. Dolan was a first team All-American in the Mile as a redshirt freshman last year and this season he posted top-20 national times in both the Mile and the 800 meters.
 
Following his first year of collegiate competition Dolan was a semifinalist in the 800 meters at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials last summer. He ran as fast as 1:46.41 in the 800 meters last Spring and becomes the first Villanova men's runner to qualify for the NCAA Championships in the 800 meters since Samuel Ellison in 2014. Dolan opened the 2022 indoor season by running 1:48.11 in the 800 meters at the Penn 10-Team Select in January. That is now the third-fastest indoor time in the Wildcats record book after Dolan's record-setting time last weekend. He also ran 3:56.39 in the Mile during the indoor season.
 
Keegan is a three-time All-American in the 800 meters, including earning first team honors after placing seventh at the indoor NCAA Championships last season. This year she has run as fast as 2:03.48 at the Husky Classic in Seattle which stands as the third-fastest indoor 800 meters in the Villanova record book. Keegan and former teammate Siofra Cleirigh Buttner are the only runners in Wildcats history to break 2:04 during the indoor season.
 
Last weekend Kegan won her second career title in the 800 meters at the BIG EAST Championships. She posted a winning time of 2:06.02, ran the 400 meter leg of the team's champion distance medley relay and anchored the 4x800 meter relay squad to a third place finish and All-BIG EAST honors. Like Dolan, Keegan competed in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in the 800 meters last summer. She qualified for the Trials after running 2:01.25 during the NCAA East Preliminary in May. The time is the fastest in school history to be run during the NCAA season.