Day 3 Preview: Sean Dolan Runs in the 800 Meter Championship Race on Friday Night

EUGENE, Ore.Champions will be crowned on Friday night as the men’s competition concludes at the 2022 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field. In action for Villanova will be a sophomore middle distance runner Sean Dolan (Pennington, NJ) who runs in the final of the 800 meters at 10:14 pm Eastern time (7:14 pm Pacific time). The race will be broadcast live on ESPN2 and can also be streamed online via WatchESPN or the ESPN mobile app.

Dolan was an automatic Qualifier for the Championship race in the 800 meters after he finished second in his semifinal heat on Wednesday evening. He crossed the finish line with a season-best time of 1: 46.96 to claim one of two automatic spots from his heat into the final. The performance marked the second time in his career that Dolan broke 1:47 in the 800 meters and the first time since he recorded his lifetime best mark of 1: 46.41 last year during the leadup to the US Olympic Team Trials.

In the semifinal round on Wednesday the top two finishers in the second heat were Dolan and Moad Zahafi from Texas Tech who entered the NCAA Championships with the top time in the NCAA this season at 1: 43.69 back in April and who had finished first in the national quarterfinal round in 1: 44.65 at the NCAA West Preliminary meet two weeks ago. Dolan and Zahafi ran toe-to-toe for nearly their entire semifinal heat and built a gap of half a second between themselves and the chase pack as they came down the final straightaway.

This is the first career outdoor NCAA final for Dolan, who has been a first team All-American indoors in the Mile last season (2021) and a second team All-America performer in the 800 meters earlier this year. He swept this year’s BIG EAST titles in the 800 meters both indoors and outdoors coming off a redshirt freshman season a year ago in which he advanced all the way to the semifinal round of the 800 meters at the Olympic Trials.

Villanova has three Athletes who remain in competition at the NCAA Championships this week. Dolan competes on Friday night while the Women’s duo of senior high jumper Word Barnes (Keller, Texas) and Graduate middle distance runner McKenna Keegan (West Grove, PA) will be in action on Saturday afternoon.