BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—It was business as usual for graduate middle distance runner McKenna Keegan (West Grove, Pa.) on Friday night as she used a huge finish in the final straightaway to propel herself into the final of the 800 meters at the 2022 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships for the second straight year. Keegan finished third in her preliminary heat at the Birmingham Crossplex and automatically qualified for the final which will be run at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday night.
 
Keegan raced in the second of two preliminary heats on Friday and crossed the finish line in 2:04.00 to secure an automatic spot in the final by a margin of less than two-tenths of a second. The top three finishers in each heat and the next two fastest times make up the field for the championship race. It took an impressive kick by Keegan in the final 200 meters to get into position in the top three of her heat and she wound up fifth overall out of the 16 competitors in the preliminary round.
 
The second heat was a physical one that had a lot of jostling for position when the field of eight runners converged towards the inside coming out of the first turn. When the dust settled midway through the race Keegan was near the back of a tight pack and official splits after the race showed her to still be in sixth place and nearly three-quarters of a second off the pace going into the final lap. She closed with a split of 30.47 in the final 200 meters though, easily the fastest in the field. Keegan put herself into good position halfway down the final straightaway and finally moved past another runner and into third place just a couple of strides before the finish line.
 
She finished just ahead of Sarah Kendrick of Kennesaw State who posted a time of 2:04.15 and grabbed one of the two on-time qualifying spots for the final. The other on-time qualifier came from the first heat with a mark of 2:04.20. Keegan will line up in Lane 2 for the final on Saturday night in her second straight appearance in an indoor final. Last year she finished seventh in the 800 meters which remains her top career individual finish at the NCAA Championships. Keegan is a five-time All-American during her stellar collegiate career.
 
Races like the one on Friday night are getting to be routine for Keegan, although they are anything but. Her time of 2:04.00 in her preliminary heat is the seventh-fastest indoor time in Villanova history and the second time this year that Keegan has run 2:04.00 or faster. She and former teammate Siofra Cleirigh Buttner are the only women in school history to break 2:04 in the 800 meters indoors; collectively they have combined to run each of the 10 fastest indoor races in the event in the Wildcats record book.
 
Villanova entered this season having scored team points at the indoor NCAA Championships in 34 of the 38 years that the women's meet has been held. That is tied for the fourth-most years scoring of any Division I school. A top-eight finish for Keegan in the 800 meters on Saturday night would mark the 13^th straight year that the Wildcats score at the indoor NCAA meet.