Photo: Misha-Jade Samuels of Vaz Prep clears the bar at a personal best 1.50m to take gold in the Class One Girls High Jump at the JISA/TASTEE Prep Schools National Athletics Championships on Friday.
After two days of intense action former champions Vaz continues to hold a slight advantage over defending champions Hydel at the 40th staging of the JISA/TASTEE Prep Schools National Athletics Championships.
Entering into Saturday’s final day with six finals already completed, the June Cover-Simpson led team leads with 47 points to Hydel’s 43 points. Mona on 35 points, Quest on 30.5 points and Stella Maris on 11 points complete the top five.
Trailing Vaz by 10 points at the end of day one, Hydel quickly erased the deficit to take a narrow one point lead after the first final on Friday.
Zico Bennett, son of Hydel head coach Corey Bennett took the Boys Class One long jump with a leap of 5.29m while his teammate Meshach Waugh took third with 4.92m as they grabbed 15 points early in the morning. Ravaughn Rainford of Mona Prep was second with a leap of 5.02m while fifth placed Dominic Nelson picked up a valuable four points for Vaz.
The Class Two Girls high jump went the way of Quest as Ali-Kaye Nelson took first place, Mellia Perry of Portmore Missionary was second and Davine Dickenson was third, as all three girls topped out at 1.25m.
The penultimate final of the day,the Class One Girls High Jump, went the way of Vaz as Misha-Jade Samuels soared to a personal best 1.50m before calling it quits. Second went to Justina Butler of Quest while favourite Lori Choy of Mona had to settle for third. Both girls managed to clear 1.40m.
Choy made up for her disappointment in the high jump by grabbing gold on her final attempt in the long jump. Trailing Jounee Armstrong of Vaz going into the final round, the long legged Choy gave it everything on her final effort to cut the sand at 4.93m. She nervously waited to see what Armstrong could produce but the Vaz athlete was unable to do better than the 4.90m she had previously recorded and so had to settle for second place, while Rhejinae Mattis of Hydel who jumped 4.80m, finished third.
Hydel looks strong and are set to repeat as champions with their powerful Class One expected to see them home. They will however, be pushed all the way by two former champions, Vaz and Mona, who are hoping the champions will make some mistakes on the last day.
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