BATON ROUGE, La., May 30 -- With a late finishing kick, Michigan freshman Alan Webb advanced to the final of the men's 1,500 meters tonight at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at LSU.
Running in the second semifinal heat, the South Lakes High graduate needed to finish in the top four to advance to Saturday's final. The heat started slowly as Kansas senior Charlie Gruber towed the field through 800 meters in 2 minutes 4 seconds, with Webb five meters back in sixth place.
The cautious pace continued as the tightly packed runners entered the final lap. Webb moved up on the outside and was third briefly before falling back to the middle of the 10-man pack with 200 meters remaining.
Heading into the final 100 meters, it was still anyone's race. All 10 runners made a furious sprint to the tape and a top-four spot. A blanket finish resulted, with all the runners within one-half second of each other and the top six separated by .11 seconds.
Webb, who was forced to Lane 5 during the final sprint, moved up late and crossed the line third to advance in 3:45.14.
"I felt good, comfortable the whole way," Webb said. "I did what I wanted to and that was make the final. I plan on doing some damage now that I'm there." Webb broke Jim Ryun's 36-year-old high school mile record last year by running 3:53.43. "It was a little closer than I would have liked, but it's a great tuneup for Saturday. I feel confident."
Stanford sophomore Grant Robison won the heat in 3:45.11; Kansas's Gruber was second in 3:45.13. Grabbing the final automatic qualifying spot behind Webb was American University junior Sean O'Brien (3:45.18), who fell at the finish in his attempt to out-lean his competitors. Wisconsin freshman Josh Spiker also advanced as one of the four time qualifiers in 3:45.19.
"I felt great until I hit the ground," said O'Brien. "Everybody was so close, anyone could have made the final."
The biggest casualty of today's semifinals was 2000 Olympian Gabe Jennings from Stanford. Jennings, one of the prerace favorites, finished sixth in the second heat in 3:45.22 and did not advance to the final.
In the first semifinal, Connecticut senior Dan Wilson, the collegiate leader coming into the meet with a 3:40.00 qualifying time, earned an impressive win. Wilson made a decisive move with 250 meters remaining and opened a 15-meter lead. He coasted to the finish looking over his shoulder to make sure know one was gaining on him, crossing in 3:40.27, more than one second ahead of Arizona State's Brandon Strong.
"I was hoping someone would take the race out fast and that's what happened," said Wilson, the 2002 Big East runner-up. "I've got a couple more gears that I don't think a lot of these guys have seen. I'm looking forward to using them Saturday."
