BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—On the first night of competition at the 2022 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships on Friday night Villanova sophomore Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) came in 12^th overall in the preliminary round of the 800 meters with a time of 1:48.55. Dolan is one of two Wildcats qualifiers for the national meet this season and Villanova will be back in action on Saturday when senior triple jumper Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) makes his NCAA Championships debut at the Birmingham Crossplex.
 
Dolan competed in the first of two preliminary heats in the 800 meters and crossed the finish line in 1:48.55. It was a frenzied sprint to the finish line in the final lap for the eight runners in the heat and Dolan wound up less than seven-tenths of a second outside the top-three finishers who automatically qualified for the final on Saturday evening. The top three in each heat and the next two fastest times advanced to the final.
 
This is the second straight year that Dolan qualified for the indoor NCAA Championships. He was a first team All-American in the Mile as a redshirt freshman last year. This season Dolan entered the NCAA Championships ranked 14^th nationally in the 800 meters and 21^st in the nation in the Mile. Only two other athletes nationwide ranked in the top 21 of both events this season.
 
Friday's race concludes the indoor season for Dolan, but it was an incredible one for the burgeoning Villanova star. At the BIG EAST Championships last month he broke the indoor school record in the 800 meters which had stood for more than 40 years when he posted a time of 1:47.53 to earn his berth to the NCAA Championships. Dolan also ran two sub-four minute miles during the season, including a personal best time of 3:56.39 at the Indoor Music City Challenge in Nashville on February 11.
 
It will be another historic day for the Wildcats on Saturday when Cunningham competes in the triple jump. Competition gets underway at 4:45 p.m. Eastern time (3:45 p.m. Central). Cunningham rose to second place in school history in the triple jump this season with a personal best mark of 16.12 meters recorded in a meet at Clemson in early February. He trails only two-time national champion Nate Cooper in the Villanova record book and sits one centimeter in front of Jermaine Deans who had a top mark of 16.11 meters during his collegiate career.
 
Deans is the Wildcats last triple jumper to reach the NCAA Championships, which he did in both the triple jump and the long jump during his career while competing for Villanova from 1997-00. Deans and Cunningham come from the same Jamaican high school (Jamaica College) as Wildcats associate head coach Anthony Williams, who coached Deans during his Villanova days and has worked with Cunningham for the past four years.