Kingston College (KC) streaked away to comfortably win their 34th Mortimer Geddes Trophy, but it went down to the last girls’ race of the 2023 ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships for Hydel High School to narrowly secure its first-ever title.
At the end of the 42 events scored, KC widened the lead to 67 points to finish on 366, with Jamaica College (JC) ending on 299, followed by Calabar High School on 207, St Jago High School on 118.5, and St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) rounding out the top five on 116 points.
On the girls’ side after 46 events scored, Hydel High School who first entered Champs in 2010 ended with 279 points, followed by dethroned champions Edwin Allen High School on 277, followed by Holmwood Technical High School with 202, St Jago High School on 178 and St Catherine High School completing the top five on 116 points.
The five-day championships were held inside Kingston’s National Stadium and KC’s head coach Leaford Grant had no doubt his team would have walked away with the main prize despite the many predictions which claimed a close title fight.
“Well, I don’t know about it being close, what we have seen is that it was not close. I don’t understand all these predictions so far,” noted Grant.
He added: “We calculated a certain amount of points and never thought that it would have been a two-point [result], I don’t know where they got that from.”
Grant said the aim was to score over 350 points and “we knew any other team covered more than that we suspect that we would just have said they won the championships”.
The head coach added that this year’s win was “a more challenging one for us as we had to make some crucial decisions at certain times of the track season. Gibson Relays was one of them and we had to pull some teams and managed our boys properly going through the season, so we had some quality but we never had a lot of quantity in terms of the boys that we had this year so we had to manage them properly at these championships”.
For Hydel’s head coach Corey Bennett, who has been with the team since it started participating in the competition in 2010, it was all the work of the Almighty.
“I am really lost for words, God is good and he has been with us all along and even though we never believed we could have, things just kind of went our way and I asked the girls to just dig a little deeper, perform a little better,” said the man who this season also assumed responsibility for the Calabar High School track program.
“We got some great performances that you would have seen from some of our athletes. We started in 2010 and now 2023, 13 years later, yeah, God is good.”
Hydel received a gift entering the last race, the 4x400m relays, after
Edwin Allen who had romped home to victory in the Sprint Medley Relays, was disqualified, thus losing out on 12 massive points.
An Edwin Allen athlete had infringed on the inside lane on the curve and thus ran afoul of the rules, hence the disqualification.
This scenario left Hydel four points ahead, instead of eight points behind, and Bennett was quick to pounce and ensure that his charges did not throw away the gift.
“You don’t need to push for the win, but don’t come less than third. We did our math so don’t come less than third because where it was at sometimes when you try to push for the ultimate sometimes you lose all, so it was just some safe runs and our captain [Oneika McAnnuff] was supposed to lead that charge,” Bennett explained.
“She has been such a wonderful young lady from first form she came to us and we just asked them to be safe based on how the championships have been going, we got disqualified from two races, two relays in the week, this is just God’s work.”
The head coach also dedicated the historic win to his mother and the school’s founder.
“Hyacinth Bennett, our founder, she’s always wanted this and she’s unable to be with us physically here, she’s not as well as she would like to be, this one is for Hyacinth Bennett, I really just want to dedicate this one to her.”
In the final girls’ event, Edwin Allen won comfortably but Hydel did what was necessary by finishing second with McAnnuff running a brilliant leg to get her school into a comfort zone from well off the pace.
There was one record on the day and it went to Britannia Johnson of Camperdown High School who heaved the shot put to a new record 15.33m in Class One. She broke the previous record of 14.93m set by Fiona Richards of Edwin Allen High School back in 2018.
JC won the 4x400m relays Open in 3:09.31 minutes ahead of Edwin Allen and KC, but KC won the Sprint Medley Open in 3:26.98 minutes ahead of JC and Titchfield High.
The Class Three 4x100m relays was won by St Jago, Class Two by Calabar and Class One by KC in 40.01 seconds.
Demario Prince of St Jago won the Class One 110m hurdles in 13.42 seconds ahead of teammate Andre Harris in 13.79 seconds and JC’s Daniel Beckford in 13.83 seconds.
Calabar’s Shaquane Gordon won the Class Two in 13.42 seconds ahead of the KC pair of Kahiem Carby (13.59) and Daniel Clarke (13.80).
Mount Alvernia High School won yhe Class Four 4x100m relays, Wolmer’s won Class Three, and Hydel won Classes Two and One.
Alexas James of Petersfield High won the Cass One 100m hurdles in 13.39 seconds (-3.1mps) ahead of Asharria Ulett of St Catherine in 13.59 seconds and Toni-Ann Forbes of Edwin Allen in 13.61 seconds.
Jody-Ann Daley of Hydel won Class Two, Tiana Marshall of Wolmer’s won Class Three 80m hurdles and teammate Jadea Morris won Class Four 70m hurdles gold.
Malique Smithband of JC won the Class One 200m gold in 20.90 (-2.7mps), KC finished first and second in Class Two with Tahj-Marques White and Nyrone Wade, respectively, while Shaun Lewis of STETHS won Class Three.
Alana Reid completed the sprint double gold for Hydel when she won Class One 200m in 23.08 seconds (-2.0mps), teammate Shemonique Hazle won Class Two, Wolmer’s Natrece East who was second in the Class Three 100m, stepped up to win gold in the 200m, while Kayla Johnson of Immaculate completed the sprint double in Class Four.
The boys’ Class One 800 m was won by Kemario Bygrave of JC in 1:51.84 minutes, Yoshane Bowen of Maggotty won Class Two, and teammate Jayden Brown won Class Three.
On the girls’ side, Amoya Jameison of Edwin Allen won the Class One 800m gold, teammate Monique Stewart won the Class Two, and ST Jago’s Kededra Coombs won Class Three.
Final boys’ points standings after 42 events scored:
1) Kingston College 366
2) Jamaica College 299
3) Calabar High 207
4) St. Jago High 118.50
5) St. Elizabeth Technical 116
6) Edwin Allen High 65
7) Wolmer’s Boys School 60.50
8) Excelsior High 57
9) Maggotty High 46
10) Cornwall College 31
11) Petersfield High 27
12) Herbert Morrison Technica 22
13) St. George’s College 19
14) St. Catherine High 18
15) St. Mary High 17
16) Clarendon College 15
17) William Knibb Memorial 13
18) Titchfield High 11
19) Munro College 10
20) B.B. Coke High 9
21) Vere Technical 8
22) Bellefield High 7
22) Jonathan Grant High 7
22) Charlemont High 7
25) Muschett High 6
25) Port Antonio High 6
25) Steer Town Academy 6
25) St. Andrew Technical 6
25) Happy Grove High 6
30) Campion College 5
31) Hydel High 4
31) Denbigh High 4
33) Dinthill Technical 3
33) Greater Portmore High 3
33) Manchester High 3
36) Foga Road High 2
36) Mona High 2
36) St. Mary Technical 2
39) Alphansus Davis High 1
39) Camperdown High 1
Final girls’ points standings after 46 events scored:
1) Hydel High 279
2) Edwin Allen High 277
3) Holmwood Technical 202
4) St. Jago High 178
5) St. Catherine High 116
6) Wolmer’s Girls School 111
7) Immaculate Conception 94
8) Excelsior High 74.50
9) St. Elizabeth Technical 45.50
10) Mount Alvernia High 39
11) Alphansus Davis High 38
12) Vere Technical 34.50
13) St. Mary High 34.50
14) Camperdown High 30
15) Clarendon College 29
16) Manchester High 20
17) Petersfield High 16
18) Holy Childhood High 16
19) William Knibb Memorial 14
20) Lacovia High 14
21) Glengoffe High 14
22) Rhodes Hall High 12
23) Ferncourt High 8
24) St. Mary’s College 7
25) Campion College 7
26) Bridgeport High 7
27) Port Antonio High 7
28) Muschett High 6
29) Merl Grove High 5
30) The Queen’s School 4.50
31) Alpha Academy 4.50
32) Maggotty High 4
33) Westwood High 4
34) Sydney Pagon Agricultural 4
35) Bellefield High 3
36) Mannings High 3
37) Happy Grove High 2
38) Clan Carthy High 2
39) Denbigh High 1
 streaked away to comfortably win their 34th Mortimer Geddes Trophy, but it went down to the last girls’ race of the 2023){kind=link}