Sparks did not fly as they did on Monday and Tuesday but St. Mary’s High School copped the track events in Zone Three of North Georgetown’s Inter-Schools sports at the Camp Ayanganna ground yesterday.
St. Mary’s accumulated 319 points with their closest rivals, St. Stanislaus College (SSC) finishing on 285 while St. George’s High School closed out the third position on 203 points.
The top athletes from the three zones will clash tomorrow in the District 11’s Inter- Zone championships.
The top athletes of the zone yesterday demonstrated that they were a class above the rest with St. Stanislaus athletes Shannah Thornhill and Ayanna Graham winning the sprint trebles in convincing form.
But it was the under-16 Graham who won in more stunning fashion.
Graham, especially in the 400m, ran superbly from the start making up the stagger on all her opponents in the first 100m to get out in front on the back straight against the strong Atlantic breeze.
After this phase of the race she increased her lead on the homestretch to cross the line almost 15m in front of her nearest rival.
The margin of defeat in the 100m and 200m races was just as big.
Thornhill, on the other hand, in her one-lap pet event, was a bit more laid back when she ran to record a time of 1:04s.
Her team-mate and former national schools champion, Feon Jones, was second and Tiffany Accra, third.
However, Thornhill was a bit more clinical in the half lap race which she won and in the third leg of the under-20 400m relay which her school won.
Meanwhile, former youth sprint prodigy Kareem Naughton of Guyana Education Trust College (GETC) resurfaced to claim glory in his under-16 100m race ahead of Devon Abrams and Daniel Dazell.
However, Abrams turned the tables in the 200m to beat Naughton into second position.
Naughton’s former youth nemesis, Business School’s Jarel Canzius, suffered a worse fate when he finished third behind the bulky Dwayne Massey of Business School and Darwin Brown of City College.
Massey, in the 200m had no steam down the homestretch and faded to third as Derwin Brown surged into the first position.
In the under-16 400m St. Mary’s Errol Welcome, perhaps won the best 400m race when placed against the other two days of competition outside of the 400 under-20 race ran by Philip Drayton on the first day.
Welcome’s race distribution in the one-lap event was perfect and he finished with a time of 54.7s ahead of Arthur Scipio of SSC and Ocosi Hilmon.
Earlier in the day, Nashava Venture of GETC won the Open female 3000m and Jonathan Fagundes the 5000m race on the male side.
Later in the afternoon St. Mary’s stretched their lead when the school won the girls’ under-14 800 medley relay and placed second in the under-14 1500 medley relay.
They also got the runner-up position in the female under-20 4x100m relay.
In the boys’ 400m relay, Business School took the bacon with SSC and St. George’s taking second and third respectively.
GETC (203), Brickdam Secondary (179), Business School (170) and City College (98) were the other four secondary institutions that participated yesterday with their top athletes qualifying to participate tomorrow.
