NEW ORLEANS—On the heels of his second straight All-American campaign for the indoor track & field season sophomore middle distance runner Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) took home top honors as the Mid-Atlantic Region Men's Track Athlete of the Year on Thursday afternoon. The regional award winners for the 2022 indoor campaign were announced by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCA) and Dolan is the first Villanova athlete to win the award for track & field in 13 years.
 
For the first time this season the regional award winners were not voted on until the conclusion of competition at the NCAA Championships. Dolan was an NCAA qualifier in the 800 meters and finished 12^th in the preliminary heats at the national meet. He was named a second team All-American earlier this week for that finish, which wrapped up a sensational indoor campaign. Dolan was one of just three men's athletes nationwide who ranked in the top 21 of the Division I performance list in both the 800 meters and the Mile this year. The versatile and emerging star for the Wildcats was a first team All-American in the Mile as a redshirt freshman last season.
 
During the 2022 indoor campaign Dolan was the BIG EAST champion in the 800 meters and broke Villanova's indoor school record with a time of 1:47.53 in the final at the conference championships. The previous mark of 1:47.84 had stood for more than 40 years since being set by John Marshall at the 1982 Millrose Games. Dolan recorded three of the 10 fastest indoor times in the 800 meters in school history this season alone. He ran a pair of sub-four minute miles during the year, including a lifetime best mark of 3:56.39 in the Indoor Music City Challenge at Vanderbilt last month. He also ran 3:57.59 in the Sykes & Sabock Challenge at Penn State earlier during the indoor season.
 
The rise of Dolan on the national scene over the past year has been remarkable. He became a sub-four miler for the first time in his career at the 2021 NCAA Championships, then later in the year qualified for he U.S. Olympic Team Trials in the 800 meters and advanced to the semifinals at the Trials. Dolan added to his BIG EAST title in the 800 meters by anchoring the Wildcats to a second place finish and All-BIG EAST recognition in the 4x800 meter relay.
 
Villanova has won 10 regional athlete of the year awards from the USTFCCCA over the years. All but three of those honors have come in cross country, however. Dolan joins former national champion Bobby Curtis and Sean Tully as the only Wildcats athletes to be the Mid-Atlantic Men's Track Athlete of the Year for either the indoor or outdoor seasons. Curtis won the award indoors in 2008; Tully was the outdoor award winner a year later.
 
All 10 of the regional athlete of the year awards in cross country and track & field for Villanova have come during the head coaching tenure of Marcus O'Sullivan, who is in his 24^th year leading the Wildcats in 2021-22 and is himself a 13-time winner of the Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year honor.