Goburn cautiously pleased with Jago progress
OVER THE years, St Jago High School’s girls’ track and field team had been the queens of sprint hurdles at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) as the Monk Street, Spanish Town-based institution was very dominant in this format in all classes. St Jago has produced the likes of Michelle Freeman, Delloreen Ennis-London, Peta-Gaye Dowdie, Tamika Brown, Kaysia McKoy, Natasha Ruddock and Chrisdale McCarthy, who all have represented the country with success at either the junior or senior level. At Champs, sprint hurdling points were bread and butter for St Jago, and after a slight lapse, the school is on track to bring back those glory days.
On Saturday, at the Pure Water/JC/ Danny Williams Invitational Meet, the Keilando Goburn-coached girls gave an awesome display after winning in three of the classes. Despite being early in the season, it was a top-notch performance from the team as all the top schools were present and their performances brought back memories of the past.
In the Class 1 100m hurdles, Rosealee Cooper won in 14.32 seconds as Crystal Morrison clocked 13.70 seconds to win in the Class 2 equivalent. Class 3 athlete Quaycian Davis won the 80m hurdles in 11.05 seconds ahead of teammate Danae Nembhard, second in 11.95 seconds.
St Catherine High School’s Jerese Allwood won the 70m hurdles in 11.18 seconds to foil the Jago clean sweep, but Jaeda Mitchell, Mosa Edwards and Jade-Ann Dawkins finished second, fourth and fifth, respectively, to close an excellent day for the team over the barriers.
After seeing his charges doing so well, Goburn, who has been at the helm since 2008, was a happy man but was not carried away by the results. However, he is determined to get the school back to the glory days in the event.
”We are still in the infant days of our preparations, and there is still lot of things to work on. Usually, we use this meet to see where we are, and [it’s] nothing to really get excited about as we usually have good hurdlers, and we still have a lot of work to do,” said Goburn.
“It is a fact that St Jago, over the years, has produced good hurdlers in the female department, and that cannot be taken away from the institution,” he said. “Saturday’s performances are very encouraging, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of things to work on, and there were some flaws which will have to be fixed going into the season. But what impressed me was that there were some quality hurdlers there from other teams and we came out on top, and it is really encouraging,” he said.