- Paul Reid photo
The Edwin Allen team which retained the HSG Championship of the Americas 4x800m crown yesterday at the Penn Relay Championships.
Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
PHILADELPHIA:
VERE TECHNICAL girls broke their four-year winless streak in the High School girls 4x100 metres relay at the Penn Relays in fine style yesterday as they romped to a blistering 44.32 seconds to break their own record set in 1998.
The Jamaican girls won two of the three Championships events after Edwin Allen High shrugged off the controversy surrounding their star 800m runner Kay-Ann Thompson to retain their 4x800m.
For the second year running Holmwood came home empty handed, their best finish being second in the 4x800 to Edwin Allen and to add insult to injury, they were disqualified in the 4x400m after coming second to defending champions Long Beach Poly. Edwin Allen were promoted to second.
The girls have set the bar at a high mark for the boys, who had good day of their own yesterday, sending several qualifiers to the finals of the 4x100m and 4x800m with the heats and finals of the 4x400 set to run today.
It was a second sun-bathed day at Franklin Field belying weather forecasts calling for thundershowers and cool temperatures.
Yesterday belonged to the Vere girls however as, led by an outstanding anchor leg from Champs double sprint gold medallist Simone Facey, who took the baton from Sharneter Stewart in third place behind Holmwood's Nyoka Cole and Long Beach's Shalanda Solomon, won their 14th title and first since 2000, smashing their own record of 44.78 seconds set in 1998 with a team that included Veronica Campbell and Aileen Bailey. The full team in running order was Indira Spence, Maris Wisdom, Stewart and Facey.
Long Beach, who ran 44.50 seconds, and Holmwood, 44.62, were also under the old record. Edwin Allen were fourth, Queen's sixth, Manchester seventh and St. Andrew High eighth. Vere's coach, Dwayne Jarrett, described the win as "the best welcome back gift", telling The Gleaner he had no doubt the team would win but said he was a bit surprised at the fast time it ran.
CHANGE
Jarrett said he watched Long Beach and Holmwood and made one change to his team from Thursday's heats, bringing in Stewart and switching Facey to the anchor leg.
Hours after learning they were disqualified from the distance medley relay from the previous day after placing second, the Edwin Allen foursome of Jodi-Ann Richards - 2:10.8, Marisa Pencil 2:11.1, Kerone Miller - 2:13.7, and Lorraine McKenzie - 2:13.3, outduelled Holmwood Technical down to the last few metres before winning in 8:50.20. This was the fastest time ever for Edwin Allen and the seventh best at the Relays.
A gallant Holmwood were second in 9:00.56 seconds with the team of Celia White, Vanessa Boyd, Cadian Beckford and Cassandra Powell.
Edwin Allen were disqualified on Friday morning as it was ruled that Kay-Ann Thompson who had run the anchor leg was ineligible after surpassing the four years of eligibility for High School athletes at the meet.
Michael Dyke, coach of the Edwin Allen team, said the win was "sweet redemption" and cleared away the cloud that hung over the team since the news of Thompson's ineligibility broke on Wednesday.
After being beaten three straight times by Edwin Allen this season, Holmwood put up a tremendous fight, leading the race with a lap to go but anchor leg runner Powell failed to keep off McKenzie who caught her with 200m to go and battled her the last 15 strides.The close running in the home stretch caused Powell to lose the baton a few steps from the line and would have been credited with a much faster time.
