Williams was awesome, but Oberlin repeat

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

ST Mary High's Jodeen Williams dominated the Class One Girls sprints when she clocked 12.01secs for a new time in the 100m at the Eastern Athletic Championships at the Stadium East field yesterday.

Williams later erased her own mark of Monday's heats (55.75) to clock 54.38 in the 400m and three hours later, a smashing 23.96 over 200m.

However, Oberlin High retained their title with 590 points, overtaking early leaders Buff Bay (587.5). St Mary High were third with 351, ahead of Glengoffe (225.5), Morant Bay (218.5), Titchfield (169), Yallahs (168) Seaforth (143) and St Mary's College (124) for the top 10.

"I'm overwhelmed and I just want to say thanks to my coaches. I told my coach that by the time Boys and Girls Champs comes around I want to run 23secs as I've been running 24s," Williams told the Observer.

Meanwhile, 18 records were broken over the two days, with Williams accounting for two. Christopher Shakespeare of Morant Bay leaped 6.47m to do likewise in the Class 2 Boys long jump, while Trudy McCalla (15.23secs) broke the 100m hurdles Class One mark.

Buff Bay's Romario Grapine-Rodney broke his own record of 1.80m — along with St Mary High's Anthony Clarke (1.85) — and went on to clear 1.93 in the Class 2 high jump

Class 3 Boys long jump winner Relando Richards of Oberlin leaped 5.99m. Titiana Markland of St Mary's High who was second in the Class One Girls 400 took the 800m in a record 2:20.93.

St Mary High's Class 4 Girls broke the 4x100 record by clocking 51.01secs, while Oberlin's Class One team did 50.76 to also be record-breakers.

Lamar Evans of Buff Bay obliged with 1.77m in the Class 3 Boys high jump, while Yallahs clocked 4:38.18 in the Girls Medley.

Buff Bay's coach Kevin Brown conceded that "Oblerlin are the defending champions and we put up a real good fight. We had some hiccups... they did not win by much... without that we would've been in a better position."

According to Oberlin's Everton Leslie, "This championship was very competitive and I must congratulate Buff Bay, St Mary High and our athletes for making a great championship.

"We expected it; it came down to the wire and we fought a good championship," he said.