By Jack Pfeifer

Two New Yorkers, Megan Patrignelli and Brianna Nerud, qualified for the Olympic Trials women’s steeplechase in Portland, Ore., on Thursday evening, despite bad weather conditions, at the Stumptown Twilight meet at Mt. Hood Community College.

Running in a rainstorm, Patrignelli won the 3,000-meter steeple in 9:43.37, a lifetime best by more than 10 seconds, well under the Trials auto qualifying standard of 9:53.00 and even the Olympic Games standard of 9:45.00.

Nerud also ran a lifetime best, finishing 3^rd in 9:50.90. Nerud, 21, a high school star at North Shore, L.I., has had a spotty college career, running only 10:40 last month in failing to advance out of the NCAA Regionals for her current school, Oregon. She had a brief earlier stay at Syracuse after setting the national high school record of 10:00.72 four years ago while at North Shore. That remained her PR until she ran 9:58.48, her first sub-10 performance, just a week ago.

Patrignelli, who turned 24 two days ago, is an Oregon graduate herself and attended Monroe-Woodbury H.S. A journeyman steepler, she broke 10 minutes for the first time last month, running 9:56.56 on May 20, then improving slightly to 9:54.13 a week ago at the Harry Jerome meet in Vancouver, B.C., a PR but still achingly short of the Trials standard. Patrignelli, who runs for Team Run Eugene, had lifetime bests earlier this spring in the 1,500 (4:18) and 5,000 (15:56).

In the women’s 1,500 on Thursday, the New Yorker Mary Cain, in the midst of a shaky Olympic season, was upbeat after a 3^rd-place finish. She finished in 4:13.16, one second behind the winner of the race, Colleen Quigley, and a few seconds off her seasonal best of 4:10.84.

“The reason I’m relaxed,” Cain told Letsrun.com, “is I’m finally in a place where I see it’s going to happen again.

“It didn’t happen today, and it didn’t happen last weekend. Will it happen the week after or come at the Trials? I don’t really know. I have so much faith in the training and the changes we’ve made that long-term I know it’s going to happen and I know it’s going to be better than 4:03.”

Finishing 4^th in the 1,500 was Emily Lipari, the Villanova graduate and New York native, who ran 4:13.36. Lipari has not yet qualified for the Olympic Trials, while Cain has.

Entries for the upcoming Trials closed a week ago. The window for qualifying marks closes on Sunday. The Trials themselves begin on Friday, July 1. The final accepted fields will be announced next week.

Later in the evening, Cain ran a workout-level 5,000, finishing 11^th in a solid 15:49.32. In that race, Aisling Cuffe, who just wrapped up her college career at Stanford University, ran her fastest 5k in years, finishing 5^th in 15:35.12, just behind the veteran Jordan Hasay, 4^th in 15:29.66. Cuffe’s time is short of the Trials auto standard of 15:26, so she will need to wait to see if her time makes the cutoff.

In 12^th was another New Yorker, Lindsey Scherf, in 15:55.09. Scherf, a Harvard graduate, has run 32:27.01 for 10k this year and may make the Trials in that event.

Matthew Centrowitz won the men’s 15 by more than 2 seconds, in 3:37.81, a final pre-Trials tuneup for this year’s Wanamaker Mile champion, considered a possible medalist at this summer’s Rio Games. An American has not won the Olympic 1,500 in more than 100 years.  

The Oregon Ducks’ Edward Cheserek finished 7^th in that 1,500, in 3:41.57, while the New Yorker Chad Noelle, the 2015 NCAA champion for Oklahoma State, was back in 14^th.

The men’s 5k was won by the Canadian Justyn Knight of Syracuse, in a lifetime-best 13:26.36, just missing the Olympic standard, in a race in which the Olympian Galen Rupp finished just 3^rd. Rupp also lost to the recent University of Portland graduate Woody Kincaid, by .02. Rupp, who has made the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon, is expected to run the 10,000 at the Trials and try for a Games double.