Nottingham qualifies for 4x100 Championship of America
PHILADELPHIA >> Judeson Mirac barely had time to compose himself before he picked his head up and had teammate Shamali Whittle bearing down on top of him.
It was the kind of slip up that can be costly in a 4x100 relay often determined by the thinnest of margins.
Only this one wasn’t either of the Nottingham runners’ fault.
The Northstars overcame an officiating blunder in which Mirac was placed in the wrong lane and recovered to run a heat-winning time of 41.85 on Friday afternoon, which also qualified them for the Championship of America final at the Penn Relays.
“I was like, ‘why is he moving Judeson?’” an animated coach Jon Adams said.
Running the third leg, Mirac said the race official mistakenly put him in lane 6 when Nottingham was actually running in lane 7. It wasn’t until one of the other competitors noticed him in the wrong lane and pointed it out that he moved.
“Next thing I heard is ‘boom’ and I don’t even have my lane assignment yet,” Mirac said. “I just hopped in the lane. Somebody told me I’m in lane 7. I already seen (Shamali) coming toward me. You see that guy in the blue rain coat. When he was right there, that’s when I saw him. Like 10-15 meters.”
“The kid had to step off his step, get back to his mark and and Dana Ridley delivered one of the school’s finest athletic achievements.
“I was nervous, but I just wanted to run so bad,” said Whittle, a freshman who ran the second leg. “I saw the crowd, I heard the noise. I wanted to get on the track so bad, and when I got the baton, I felt like I was flying.”
The nine fastest times advanced to Saturday’s 2:04 p.m. Championship of America race here at Franklin Field. Nottingham’s 41.85 sat right on the cutline as the ninth quickest time as the final two heats were completed.
“I was getting excited,” Mirac said. “Clapping, jumping, getting hype.”
The Championship of America will feature six Jamaican teams and three from the United State. Kingston College (41.05) ran the top qualifying time followed by St. Jago (41.40) and Coatesville (41.55).
“We’re running with some guys who can fly, but they’re going to go out and do their best,” Adams said. “I don’t think (they’ll be intimidated). If they were going to be nervous, it would have been today. We’ll go out and give it our best try and try to represent our state.”
Whittle, the lone freshman among a group of juniors, knows they can go faster.
“We just wanted to smoke the track,” Whittle said. “Put fire on the track. We just wanted to have fun.”
PENN RELAYS 4x100 RELAY CHAMPIONSHIP OF AMERICA QUALIFIERS
Kingston College (East Kingston, JAM) 41.05 St. Jago (St. Catherine, JAM) 41.40 Coatesville (Coatesville, PA) 41.55 Wolmer’s Boys (Kingston, JAM) 41.57 Ruseas (Lucea, Hanover, JAM) 41.62 Central Dauphin East (Harrisburg, PA) 41.64 Jamaica College (Kingston, JAM) 41.66 Calabar (Kingston, JAM) 41.71 Nottingham (Hamilton, NJ) 41.85