Tam Speedster McMillan Heads to State Meet With Gusto

senior has one heck of a summer vacation planned.

But before she heads to Europe for a seven-country trek, the track star has a goal to achieve that’s been just of out reach in the past two years: getting to the finals at the California Interscholastic Federation’s state track meet.

McMillan hopes to check that box this weekend. The speedster won the 100 (12.47) and 200 (25.01) meter races at the North Coast Section Meet of Champions on the UC Berkeley campus last weekend, qualifying her for the state meet at Buchanan High in Clovis for the third consecutive year.

“Winning the Meet of Champions made me realize that I have to raise the bar a little bit more this year for my goals,” McMillan said. “I’m just really trying to get to finals. It might be unrealistic to say I’m going to get third or fourth or something like that, but getting to the finals would be a big accomplishment.”

McMillan begins that quest Friday night with preliminary races in both the 100 and 200 meters. If she qualifies for the finals, she’ll race again Saturday night. The top 9 preliminary times advance to the finals. As a sophomore, McMillan placed 21st in the 100 and 11th in the 200, and placed 10th in the 100 and 18th in the 200 as a junior.

“This is pretty exciting – it feels good,” McMillan said.

Regardless of the outcome, McMillan has had one of the more storied careers in Tam High track history, and track coach Kevin Engle said she “ranks among the best all time at Tam” – and he , before McMillan became one of the most dominant sprinters in recent MCAL history.

And after a month-long trip through Europe this summer, McMillan plans to continue her track career at Tulane University in New Orleans. And in an indication of her work ethic, she plans to find university’s with tracks during her trip so that she can keep training.

“They want us to be pretty good shape when we get there,” McMillan said of Tulane’s fall indoor track season. “They said that the worst thing you can do would be to show up overweight and out of shape. So I don’t plan on doing that.”