More to come from Petersfield – Woolery
Raymond Graham/Gleaner Writer
MACHEL WOOLERY, the man behind Petersfield’s track and field success, is hailing the effort of his teams at the recently concluded ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships, after both the male and female teams secured top-10 finishes at the five-day event.
Petersfield’s girls were eighth in the standings, with 51 points, while the male team ended in seventh position with 69. Woolery, who was also named as the head coach of Jamaica team to this weekend’ s Carifta Games in The Bahamas, felt Petersfield could have done even better this year, and he is expecting more success down the road, as he is convinced the programme will continue to develop top-quality athletes.
“It was indeed a good championship for Peters field ,” Woolery told
The Gleaner.
“We wanted to finish in the top five among the boys and top 10 among the girls. On the girls’ side, we achieved our objectives, and on the boys’ side, we were a bit off as we lost some points even before coming to the championships, and we lost some during the championships. This is part of the whole thing as they maintained their top-seven finish, and I am not going to beat up on the kids for that. Overall, I think we had some brilliant performances at Champs this year,” he said, pointing to his top gun, Antonio Watson, the Class Two 200m and 400m champion.
DROPPED POINTS
Woolery, however, felt the team could have gained more points in the throws, and he is focusing on putting things in place to ensure continued success.
“We have areas which we normally dominate, like the throws, where we lost the Class One shot put, and that was a heart-wrenching one for us. The javelin open, where we finished third, we should have won there, and we did not feature well in the Class Two boys’ discus this year,” Woolery assessed.
“There is hope for the future, and despite us having several seniors moving on, I think we have a good squad for next year, and we just have to put in a lot of work to strike a balance and come back bigger and better next year,” he said.