LEXINGTON, Ky.—With an East First Round meet record and Kentucky facility record in hand, senior distance runner Marco Langon (Raritan, N.J.) is headed back to Eugene to race for a national championship in the 500 meters. He will do so as the fastest qualifier coming out of the East region after running a season best 13:27.93 in a national semifinal race at the University of Kentucky Outdoor Track and Field Complex on Friday night. Langon easily punched his ticket to give Villanova a qualifier for the outdoor NCAA Championships for the eighth straight year and 18^th time in the last 19 seasons.
 
It was business as usual for Langon on the final night of men's competition at the NCAA East First Round. Already an eight-time All-American during his collegiate career, including four times in the 5000 meters with a pair of top three NCAA finishes, Langon will be back on the national stage on Friday, June 12 at the 2026 Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field in Oregon. It will be his third consecutive season running the 5K at the outdoor championships.
 
Langon was part of a three-man lead pack along with Rocky Hansen from Wake Forest and Taha Er Raouy from Eastern Kentucky who separated themselves from the rest of the field by the middle of the race. They never looked back, although even with the first five runners across the line assured of automatic qualifying spots to Oregon, there was no such thing as the leading trio putting it on cruise control towards the end of the race. Langon closed with a 60-second bell lap and wound up exactly half a second faster than his seed time of 13:28.43 from Duke earlier this season.
 
Friday night's time of 13:27.93 is the seventh-fastest outdoor 5K in school history which occurred during the collegiate season. Langon now owns five of the top nine times on that particular list in the program record book and already has seven collegiate races below 13:30. His school record and lifetime best is 13:05.21 set this past December. Langon is already the only athlete in school history with three combined top six finishes in the 5000 meters at the NCAA Championships indoors and outdoors.
 
The depth of the Wildcats distance group was on display Friday night with four qualifiers for the national semifinal round of the 5000 meters. The junior duo of CJ Sullivan (Milton, Mass.) and Bailey Habler (Sydney, Australia), each in their second collegiate outdoor season, ran in the second heat after Langon and posted times of 14:17.84 and 14:39.85, respectively.
 
Earlier in the evening, graduate student Matt Bogdan (Holmdel, N.J.) recorded a time of 9:16.19 in the 3000 meter steeplechase. Bogdan was running in the national quarterfinal round of the event for the second time in his career and wrapped up a strong season which saw him rise to seventh in school history in the steeplechase. He posted a season and personal best time of 8:49.58 at the Penn Relays last month and went on to tally a fifth place finish at the BIG EAST Championships two weeks ago. Bogdan posted personal bests in the mile, 3000 meters and steeplechase during the 2026 competition season.
 
Four days of nonstop action at the NCAA East First Round wraps up on Saturday when Villanova will have a busy day of events. Junior Malaika Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) is a three-time qualifier for this meet in the high jump and will get underway at 2 p.m. Saturday. The evening events will feature junior sprinter Olivia Allen (Kingwood, Texas) in the quarterfinal round of the 400 meter hurdles along with the duo of graduate student Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) and junior Tilly O'Connor (Spring Lake, N.J.) in the national semifinal round of the 5000 meters.