CHICAGO, Ill.—Led by four individual gold medalists and a total of six podium performances the Villanova men's track & field team surged to a second place team finish at the 2023 BIG EAST Indoor Track & Field Championships presented by Jeep which wrapped up on Saturday afternoon. Fifth year triple jumper
Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) highlighted the Wildcats performances by winning the gold medal in his signature event for the third consecutive season.
Villanova scored 98 points over two days at the Dr. Conrad Worrill Indoor Track and Field Center at Gately Park. This is the 14
th time at the indoor BIG EAST meet that the Wildcats have posted a top-two team finish. Saturday's gold medals included Cunningham in the triple jump, fifth year
Charlie O'Donovan (Cork, Ireland) in the mile, senior
Sean Dolan (Pennington, N.J.) winning his second straight indoor 800 meter title and junior
Liam Murphy (Millstone, N.J.) pulling away in the final lap to win the 3000 meters.
The other podium finishes came in the final two events of the day as Villanova won bronze medals in the 4x800 meter relay and the 4x400 meter relay. Senior
Miller Anderson (West Hartford, Conn.) led off the 4x800 relay and was followed by fifth year
Evan Addison (Collegeville, Pa.), O'Donovan and Dolan. The team recorded a time of 7:30.00 and outkicked DePaul by just over two seconds to secure the final medal in the race.
Two juniors and two freshmen made up the Wildcats lineup in the 4x400 relay and they combined to post a time of 3:13.93. Junior
Nicholas Mollica (Jackson, N.J.) led off the race and was followed by junior
Jakob Kunzer (George Town, Grand Cayman) ahead of the freshman duo of
Ronan O'Neill (Wilmette, Ill.) and
Jimmy Milgie (Wildwood, Mo.). Earlier in the day Mollica had run 49.08 in the final of the 400 meters to tally an eighth place finish.
O'Donovan led wire to wire in the mile set a meet record by winning with a time of 3:58.07. He came across the finish line more than a second ahead of the runner-up from Butler. Following the race O'Donovan talked about what it meant to be the BIG EAST champion in the mile after having had a chance to win it in previous years.
"It is pretty special," O'Donovan said. "I wasn't focused on the time at all. It was more so about getting in there and trying to win. To be a BIG EAST record is pretty cool. I eased up towards the line to enjoy the moment because I have been in a position many times where I should have won this race before and I didn't. It is my last indoors at BIG EAST so it was pretty special for it to come together."
Dolan was locked in a close race with Mahamed Sharif of Connecticut and Abel Teffra of Georgetown in the final of the 800 meters. He took the lead for good during the final 100 meters and then pulled away coming out of the final turn to post a winning time of 1:47.66. Dolan approached his indoor school record time of 1:47.53 which he had run in last year's BIG EAST final.
"It was a good run," Dolan said of his second straight indoor gold medal performance. "It was a nice, easy pace and we really ripped the end there. I felt good. A little shaky in the prelims yesterday but the whole goal was to come out with a win and get 10 points for the team. [My mindset] was just win. The times go out the window today and just do what you have to do to win."
Murphy pulled away from Patrick Thygesen of Providence and Camden Gilmore from Georgetown to win the 3000 meters by nearly two seconds. After breaking the indoor school record in the 3K just two weeks ago when he recorded a time of 7:45.67, Murphy's winning mark on Saturday was 7:55.53. It has already been quite a year of competition for Murphy. During the Fall he was the USTFCCCA Mid-Atlantic Region Athlete of the Year in cross country after winning the individual title at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional. So far during the indoor season he has run 3:55.58 in the mile and set a school record in the 3000 meters. This weekend at the BIG EAST Championships he anchored the Wildcats to a gold medal in the distance medley relay and added individual gold with Saturday's win in the 3000 meters.
The final individual event to wrap up on Saturday was the triple jump in which Cunningham tallied his third consecutive indoor victory. He won with a season best performance of 15.98 meters and tallied the fifth BIG EAST podium finish of his career. Cunningham has competed three times during the indoor season – all in the past three weeks – and increased his top season mark with each successive outing. He opened the year with a mark of 15.27 meters at the Scarlet Knight Open on February 4 and went on to register a distance of 15.63 meters at Clemson two weeks ago prior to today's winning mark.
With the majority of conference meets around the country being held this weekend, teams will now turn their attention to selections for the NCAA Championships which will be announced this week. The top 16 declared athletes in all individual events and the top 12 declared relay teams qualify for the NCAA Championships which take place on March 10-11 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
