EUGENE, Ore.—In a span of less than 15 minutes Villanova recorded a pair of top-four individual finishes which propelled the Wildcats to a top-20 team finish at the 2022 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships which concluded at Hayward Field on Saturday afternoon. Graduate middle distance runner McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) was the national runner-up in the 800 meters and senior Sanaä Barnes (Keller, Texas) came in fourth in the high jump to combine for 13 team points. Villanova tied for a 19th place finish in a championship field that included 68 scoring teams and a total of 132 Division squads who sent at least one athlete to the meet.
 
This is the highest that the Wildcats have placed at the outdoor NCAA meet since 2011 and marks the 15^th time that Villanova has posted a top-20 team finish at the outdoor national championships. The second place finish by Keegan in the 800 meters accounted for eight team points and Barnes added five more points with the fourth top-six NCAA finish of her career. Wildcats head coach Gina Procaccio has led her program to two top-20 outdoor finishes during her coaching career. The 2021-22 seasons marked the 10^th time in the last 18 years that Villanova scored team points at the NCAA Championships in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field.
 
National championship competition is always memorable but Saturday stands out as an especially memorable day for the Wildcats program. Barnes took her first jump of the day a few minutes after 2 p.m. and tallied her final attempt of the competition just after 3:30 p.m., minutes before the championship race in the 800 meters. The two events finished so close together that Barnes and Keegan exited the track for the mixed zone media access at the same time. It was early evening – after the close of competition and during the awards ceremonies – that they each had the opportunity to step onto the podium with big smiles on their faces and accept their trophies which recognize first team All-America performances in each event.
 
Keegan passed at least four runners during the final lap of the 800 meters and swung wide as she powered down the final straightaway in one of the most remarkable finishes of her career. She was running the 109^th and final race of her Villanova tenure and poured every last ounce of effort into completing her incredible career ledger. Keegan ends her time in a Wildcats singlet as a seven-time All-American, including three top-eight national finishes and a pair of top-three results in the 800 meters indoors and outdoors this year. She is also an eight-time BIG EAST champion, a 12-time All-BIG EAST performer and has run on four Championship of America teams in the Penn Relays.
 
The sprint to the finish line in Saturday's final gave Keegan a time of 2:01.71 in the race, the second-fastest mark of her collegiate career behind only the lifetime best of 2:01.25 that she recorded last season. She surged across the line just in front of Gabija Galvydyte from Oklahoma State who finished third in 2:01.76 and held her ranking entering the race after being the second-fastest qualifier coming out of the semifinal heats on Thursday night. Keegan becomes the third Villanova runner to finish as high as second outdoors in the 800 meters, joining previous national runners-up Veronica McIntosh (1985) and Tosha Woodward (1995). There have been three Wildcats – Keegan (2022), McIntosh (1985) and Patty Bradley (1984) who tallied top-three finishes indoors and outdoors in the 800 meters in the same year.
 
Barnes also joined the ranks of some of the most accomplished student-athletes in Wildcats history. She is now a five-time All-American in the high jump, including four career top-six finishes. She has competed at the outdoor NCAA Championships three times during her career and has never finished lower than sixth in the competition. Her fourth place result on Saturday tied her indoor finish from her freshman year in 2019 for the best of her collegiate career. She cleared the bar at a height of 1.83 meters, a mark at which only eight of the competitors in the field of 24 athletes made it over. Barnes was one of just four who reached 1.83 meters without having had a miss on the day.
 
The bar started at a height of 1.72 meters and Barnes tallied successful jumps on each of her first four attempts of the day. After the opening height, subsequent bar raises were to 1.77 meters, 1.80 meters and 1.83 meters. More than half of the championship field (14 of 24) remained in the competition when the bar moved to 1.83 meters, although that installation claimed six more competitors who missed on their three tries at that height. When Barnes made it over at 1.83 meters on her first try, it was her eighth consecutive successful jump in NCAA competition. She was 4-for-4 at the NCAA East Preliminary last month before starting 4-for-4 in Saturday's championship.
 
Barnes was eliminated on three missed tries at 1.86 meters, which would have matched her season best performance and been one centimeter away from her lifetime best of 1.87 meters. She nevertheless joined an exclusive group of 15 women in Villanova history who have finished in the top-six of an individual event at the NCAA Championships at least four times during their careers.
 
The final day of action at the NCAA Championships on Saturday puts an official wrap on the 2021-22 seasons of competition for the Wildcats 24 varsity sport programs. Villanova had 12 of its sport programs advance to national postseason competition in 2021-22, including individual athletes in men's and women's track & field who qualified for the NCAA Championships both indoors and outdoors. The women's cross country team earned a team berth to the NCAA meet while the men's cross country squad qualified three individual athletes for the national meet. Women's swimming & diving had an individual qualifier for the NCAA Championships and five other teams – football, men's soccer, men's basketball, women's basketball,and softball – were selected for their respective NCAA tournaments.