Holmwood sparkle in discus and 4x400m

Holmwood Technical High School finished this week’s Central Championships with a thrilling win in the 4x400 metres. For head coach Dave Anderson, it was a sign that his charges are accelerating into the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

Holmwood’s girls tallied 220 points to finish behind Edwin Allen High School, 375.2, Hydel High School, 305.6, and St Jago High School, 274.6.

Speaking at the G.C. Foster College for Physical Education and Sport on Wednesday, Anderson commented, “That is what we ask the youngsters to do, look better as we get closer to Champs, and so far they’re holding up. With two training weeks to go, we’re expecting things to get better.”

Highlighted by a record performance by discus thrower Cedricka Williams, the Holmwood effort ended with a spine-tingling win in the 4x400m relay. Abriana Wright, the runner-up in the Class Three 400m, leaned in to take the gold medal for Holmwood by millimetres in three minutes 41.81 seconds to 3.41.82 for Edwin Allen.

“Holmwood are a 4x400m team by culture,” he explained. “You know, they seem to be getting it right as we get closer to our major championships so it’s just a culture and they have that thinking to say that they can do it, although we know that we’re not right there because there are teams in the 3.30s. Normally, this time of year, we’d have been sub-3.40 but I’m not worried because I think we have enough persons to get it right,” he predicted.

Wright and her twin sister Abrina, second in the Class Three 200m, are the nieces of World and Olympic 400 metres medal winner Lorraine Fenton. “They model themselves off those twins from our rival school. They seem to follow their progress and think that they can fall in the same line of being two twins that perform to the highest level,” Anderson related in a reference to Tina and Tia Clayton of Edwin Allen.

He was full of praise for Williams and his throws coach Dwight Jones, who guided her to a personal best 53.91 metres in the Class One discus. “I think 55m is in her arms at the right time. We’d have seen it in training. I think she’d have gotten 55m in one of our throw-offs, so I’m not surprised. I think if this young lady keeps her head on the day, she can definitely be unbeatable once she gets her throws right and gets the maximum,” he offered.

“Coach Jones is doing a great job with her and I have to commend him,” Anderson affirmed. “And I hope she stays healthy and stays focused.”

Undefeated this season, Williams upped her personal and seasonal best from 53.38m and made another advance towards Shanice Love’s Jamaican junior record of 54.72 metres. “She keeps on talking about that record and before Love broke the record, it was a Holmwood record, you know, by Gleneve Grange,” Jones reported. “So I think that record should come back home and that’s part of the plan, to get it back.”