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TAMPA, Fla. - The second day of competition at the NCAA East Preliminary is off to an exciting start as senior Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Dublin, Ireland) and sophomore McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) each qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 800 meters on Friday afternoon. They each ran in the first of three quarterfinal heats at the USF Track & Field Stadium, with Cleirigh Buttner earning an automatic berth to the national meet and Keegan advancing on time. Freshman Alex Harris (Stony Point, N.Y.) competed later in the evening in the quarterfinals of the 3000 meter steeplechase and recorded a time of 10:29.81.

Cleirigh Buttner is headed back to the outdoor NCAA Championships in the 800 meters after posting a season-best time for the second race in as many days. She crossed the finish line in 2:03.05 in Friday's national quarterfinal round to come in second in her heat and earn one of three automatic berths to the NCAA meet in Oregon two weeks from now. Cleirigh Buttner pushed the pace with 250 meters to go and comfortably put herself in position to finish in the top three of the heat by the time the runners turned towards the final straightaway.

"I was planning to wait until 200 to go, but the third 200 seemed to slow a bit so I decided to stretch out on the back stretch and I think that helped out McKenna and the other girls to make them go through as the top two fastest in that race," Cleirigh Buttner said. "It's just about preparation and when you get to the day you can't do much more because everything's done in training, and just hydrating, getting sleep and kind of keeping on top of it. Gina is really good at drilling that into us, and having experience definitely helps so I think we did everything right for today."

Keegan finished with a time of 2:05.16 and came in fifth in the opening heat. She was just five-hundredths of a second off the personal best mark she registered in the first round less than 24 hours earlier. The top three finishers in each heat and the next three fastest times moved onto the NCAA Championships. Keegan had to wait through the second and third heats to see if her time would hold up and punch the ticket for her first career individual berth at the national championships.

"It was a very nerve racking four to five minutes, just waiting," Keegan said. "We were saying on the cool down how it seems like the fourth time took forever to pop up and that's the time I had to wait for in the third heat. When it did, I was so happy. I was so relieved and so overwhelmed because it's just an incredible feeling."

This is the first time since 1997 that the Wildcats have had two qualifiers in 800 meters for the outdoor national championships. Cleirigh Buttner will be competing at the NCAA meet for the third straight year. She was an All-American outdoors in the 800 meters in each of the last two seasons, earning second team honors in 2016 and honorable mention accolades last season. Keegan has previously been an All-American indoors in the distance medley relay but will be making her first career individual appearance at an NCAA Championships meet.

Harris ran in the first of three quarterfinal heats of the steeplechase and finished 10th in her heat in a time of 10:29.81. She wrapped up a strong freshman season which saw her finish as the runner-up in the steeplechase at the BIG EAST Championships in addition to earning her spot at the NCAA East Preliminary meet with a qualifying time of 10:25.69 which she posted at the Penn Relays last month.

On tap for Saturday's final day of action at the preliminary meet are quarterfinal heats of the 1500 meters and semifinal heats of the 5000 meters.