St Catherine High, the new power in the land

There's a new power in the land of high school girls' track and field and it is St Catherine High School. The Conquerors finished the recent Central Championships in fifth with the school's all-time top score, leaving head coach Marlon James to ponder a top-five finish at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships (Champs) next week.

The 197.5 total placed St Catherine behind Edwin Allen High, Hydel High, St Jago High and Holmwood Technical and the achievement had James beaming.

"That's our highest score in the history of Central Champs," he said. "Last year, we scored 127 points. The previous year, we scored 80 and the previous year, it was 47, so we're going in the right direction."

Central Championships has long been a battleground for the nation's top girls programmes, and the record score has stoked the ambitions of the Spanish Town school. Asked about his expectations at Champs, James said, "Definitely looking at top five. I respect all the other schools, the Excelsiors, the Wolmers, Immaculate, they're doing extremely well. I'm not saying that they can't challenge for the top five as well, but I think we have more depth. We have more depth in the field events and we have two very good middle distance runners who will score upwards of 10 points. So I think that with a very good Champs, I think we can definitely come fifth or better."

The addition of middle distance coach Garry Williams has broadened St Catherine's scoring range.

"What we're trying to do is to build a track and field team, not just concentrated on the sprints," James said. "Yes, we are very strong in the sprints and relays, and we have very good hurdlers. We have hurdlers ranked in the top five for Classes Four, Three and Two. So we told ourselves that this year, will definitely do better in the field events.

"We did excellent in the javelin, as you saw, with the quinella at Central Champs," he said with reference to Natalie Albert and G'Nea Pitt who took gold and silver respectively.

The school is powerful in Class Two, with hurdlers Asharria Ulett and Jerece Allwood, sprinter Kaycian Johnson, 400m runner Jacian Patterson, and middle distance runner Kitana Headley all expected to score big points at Champs.

Shot putter Ashari Buchanan, fifth at Central Champs, might add to the Class Two point tally and James listed Class Three Central long jump champion Rihanna Chambers as another example of his team's field event scoring capacity.

Asked to peer into the future, James said, "I see the team itself pushing towards top four, top three in the next few years."