Penn's MacMillan qualifies for Olympic Trials in steeplechase

The Penn distance specialist broke his personal record by 15 seconds on the first full day of the Penn Relays at Franklin Field yesterday. Penn senior Sean MacMillan waited a little longer than San Lorenzo Valley (Calif.) High School's Alejandra Barrientos to show his emotion in the first full day of the Penn Relays yesterday at Franklin Field. Barrientos beamed in anticipation even before she crossed the finish line in the high school girl's distance medley, as she savored the final few steps of her team's national record-setting performance. MacMillan, on the other hand, walked off the track with his poker face on after he finished fifth in the college 3,000-meter steeplechase. But the Quakers co-captain couldn't mask his jubilation for long. Soon after, a smile was plastered on his face as he was congratulated by teammates, friends and coaches. MacMillan was going to the Olympic Trials. His time of 8 minutes and 40.29 seconds -- a personal record by 15 seconds -- was almost two seconds faster than the 8:42 mark needed to qualify for the July meet in Sacramento, Calif. The No. 18 seed going into last night's race, MacMillan wasn't supposed to be within striking distance of favorites like Steve Slattery of Colorado and Anthony Famiglietti of Tennessee, yet he was just two seconds off the lead with a lap to go. MacMillan started off in the middle of the pack and was just seventh after two laps, but the unlikely contender moved into third place -- behind Famiglietti and Tulane's Solomon Kandie -- with two laps remaining. "I never really felt overwhelmed," MacMillan said. "As a matter of fact, I actually felt like I had a chance to win the race." With 300 meters to go, MacMillan passed Kandie to momentarily move into second, but a charging Slattery quickly overtook him at the barrier on the backstretch. "I didn't have a chance to go with [Slattery] because I had a bad jump on that barrier," MacMillan said. Slattery flew past Famiglietti coming off the final curve to grab first, while two more runners passed MacMillan in the final 200. Nevertheless, the top six runners all qualified for the Trials in the lightning-fast race. The girls from San Lorenzo Valley witnessed the dramatics of the steeplechase as they milled around on the infield, but their minds were elsewhere. Just an hour before, they were completing their last-minute warmups, striding and stretching with one clear objective -- to break the national record of 11:43.53. Just an hour before, the record belonged to University High School (Calif.). But now, Raquel Barrientos, Lindsey Scarbough, Shiloh Whiting and Alejandra Barrientos possessed the best girls distance medley time in U.S. history. The road to the record was not a smooth one, however. In fact, until Alejandra Barrientos' mile leg, the road to a victory for the top-seeded Californians seemed more like a dead end. Raquel Barrientos left the team in third after her 1,200 leg, but Scarbough did her best bat out of hell impersonation to snatch the lead in the first 150 of her 400 leg. Scarbough faded in the homestretch, however, and left Whiting with only a tenuous half-stride lead. The third leg set San Lorenzo Valley back even further, as Alejandra Barrientos took the baton from Whiting trailing by four seconds with four laps left. But Barrientos, who was running in her first Penn Relays, played the hero role for her team, blazing through the final four laps in 4:44.5 -- more than 10 seconds faster than the high school girls' mile winner. Barrientos saw the clock on the infield as she crossed the finish line, and, knowing she had cinched the record, broke out into a smile of emotion and jubilation. A second later, her teammates were out on the track and the four of them embraced tightly. "We wanted the record, and that was why I kind of flipped out after I crossed the line and saw that we had got it," Alejandra Barrientos said. For MacMillan and the four girls from San Lorenzo Valley, yesterday's Penn Relays was extraordinary. But for Life Academy teammates Silah Misoi and Francis Kirwa, running on the Franklin Field track was business as usual. Last year, Kirwa won the 5,000 and Misoi the 10,000. But this year they both entered the shorter of the two races, dominating the field in the process. A mile into the race, they had a 25-meter lead over the rest of the field. Misoi would pull away from his teammate, however, winning in 13:45.87. And while Kirwa faded somewhat in the last two laps, he still took second place, eight seconds back.