Wesley the toast as Titchfield, Oberlin lead Eastern Champs day one

While day one honours went to defending boys’ champions Titchfield and Oberlin High School’s girls at the Eastern Athletics Championships inside the National Stadium yesterday, the performance of the meet’s exploratory exchanges went to Port Antonio High School’s Cavel Wesley.

Wesley broke the Class 3 high jump record, clearing 1.60 metres to give her team a big nine points yesterday, even as Titchfield and Oberlin began to stamp their class with nine of 46 finals completed.

The Port Antonio high jumper stopped her ascent much higher than did the field, with St Mary High School’s Tianna Orett and Titchfield’s Rayonique Stevens finishing their campaign with 1.45 metres. Orett was second on countback.

The overall picture sees Titchfield leading the boys with 72 points, ahead of Happy Grove on 57 and St Mary High on 48.

Oberlin are ahead in the girls’ section with 61.33 points, followed by Marymount on 54.33 and St Mary High with 45 points rounding out the top three.

On the track yesterday, all six 1500-metre finals were completed. Asharia Campbell of Oberlin was the first winner of the day, capturing the girls’ Class 3 event in 5:01.80, ahead of Tavian Pettigrew of Marymount in 5:31.58, with Kimalee Croddale of Oberlin third in 6:21.84.

St Mary High’s Jada McNett won the Class 2 1500m in 5:27.89, ahead of Trianna Blake of Oberlin in 5:54.63 and Sashique Riley of Iona High in 6:49.39.

In Class 1, Oberlin’s Lennika Walters took the win in 6:50.55, ahead of teammate Cleana Ximinies, who was second in 7:41.56.

Titchfield were victorious in the boys’ Class 3 and Class 2 events. In Class 3, Neil Crawford won in 4:49.86, ahead of Justin Dixon of Oberlin in 5:05.63, with third going to Rhyeem Brown of Morant Bay in 5:12.88.

Titchfield also took the top two spots in Class 2 with Escot Beckford winning in 4:30.82, ahead of Rhandrae Simpson in 4:37.25. Third went to Kyle Brooks of St Thomas Technical in 4:38.77.

Port Antonio’s Anthony Dillon won Class 1 in 4:23.30, finishing ahead of teammate Tyrece Whyte in 4:23.35. Third went to Xandrea Grant of Oberlin in 4:25.00.

In the field, there was a win for Marlon Barrett of St Mary High in the boys’ Class 1 discus with a throw of 40.82 metres, as Alex Benjamin of Port Antonio took second with 39.67m and Jaquan Soudan of Happy Grove, third with 39.48m.

Shahera Bailey of Happy Grove took the Class 2 discus with a throw of 29.60m, ahead of Shanique Foster of Marymount with 28.32m.

Yesterday also saw preliminary rounds on the track in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m, with all finals set to take place on today’s final day of competition, which gets under way at 9:30 a.m. with the girls’ Open 3000m final, followed by the boys’ Open 5000m at 9:35 a.m.

Other track event finals scheduled for today include the 400m hurdles, sprint hurdles in all classes, along with the 4x100m, sprint medley and 4x400m relays.