NEW YORK—In his first competition of the 2022-23 campaign graduate student Malik Cunningham (St. Andrew, Jamaica) successfully returned from an injury sustained during the past outdoor season and took over the BIG EAST lead in the triple jump at The Armory on Saturday afternoon. Cunningham was the lone Villanova athlete in competition at the Scarlet Knight Open hosted by Rutgers.
 
One of only three athletes in school history to clear 16 meters in the triple jump, Cunningham qualified for the NCAA Championships indoors last season to reach a national meet for the first time during his Wildcats career. He earned second team All-America honors with a 14^th place finish a season ago but was injured in May 2022 prior to the triple jump competition at the BIG EAST Championships. The injury shortened Cunningham's outdoor season and he returned to competition for the first time since then in Saturday's meet in New York.
 
Cunningham recorded a mark of 15.27 meters in his season debut and instantly moved to the top of the BIG EAST performance list with that performance. He finished third out of 26 athletes in the competition at the Scarlet Knight Open and can now build on his effort as the season begins to heat up in the coming weeks.
 
The first weekend of February was a quiet one for Villanova, which is gearing up for a much busier couple of days next weekend when members of the team will be in action in Boston (David Hemery Valentine Invitational); New York (Big Apple Invitational); and at Clemson (Tiger Paw Invite).