SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — WESTMORELAND’S high school track and field programmes are slowly moving out of the long shadows cast by their football counterparts with a series of outstanding results over the past few years.

At last week’s Milo County of Cornwall Athletics Association’s (COCAA) Western Champs, Westmoreland schools finished in the top four of both boys’ and girls’ sections, and made their presence felt throughout the three-day competition.

Petersfield was fourth in the boys’ section with 199 points behind winners Munro College, Herbert Morrison and St Elizabeth Technical, while Godfrey Stewart and Frome Technical also scored well.

Frome was third in the girls’ section on 172 points while Godfrey Stewart and Maude McLeod High also featured prominently.

Up to a few years ago when Mannings School abruptly pulled the plug on their track and field programme, the parish was always well represented.

From three Girls Champs titles in the 1960s, dozens of national representatives and Western Champs titles through the preceding decades, Mannings was represented by one athlete at Western Champs this year, Omesha Locke, who won the Class 3 discus.

The parish is never short of talent and the top two female sprinters at the primary school level in 2008 — Diana Johnson and Antonika Drummond — represented Holmwood Technical last year.

There is a revival in the sport in the parish, however, and schools such as Frome Technical, Godfrey Stewart High and Petersfield, known more for football, are beginning to impose themselves on the track and field scene.

At last year’s GraceKennedy Champs, Frome Technical was voted the most improved school after scoring five points in the boys’ section and 11 in the girls’.

Later in the year, an unknown, Waynee Hyman of Petersfield, stunned the track faithful at the National Junior Trials at GC Foster by winning the Under-17 200m and making the team to the IAAF World Youth Championships in Italy.

Andre Moodie of Frome was also at the Trials and made the team to the Pan-Am Juniors in Trinidad.

Both Hyman and Moodie were creating history for their respective schools.

The success does not translate into overall acceptance, however, as Westmoreland is still a football-crazy parish and occupies the first three rungs on any sports ladder, relegating everything else to second-class status.

Roderick Myles who guides the Frome programme is not employed to the school and only works with the track team in the afternoons and on weekends.

“At first it was challenging but after the first year we had some success,” said Myles who has been at the school for four years. He is mindful, however, that it is not the first time that a track and field programme has been tried there.

Rochelle Clayton was their first success story, and despite not being able to take part at Champs one year due to late entry, he says the success, especially at Western Champs, is tangible.

Next month at Champs he says he is expecting points from the versatile Daneel Thomas in the javelin and Class 2 discus as well as Stephanie Barrett in the Class 3 800m/1500m after she placed fourth in both events last year.

Barrett, he said, has struggled this year with a knee injury but thanks to the care from physiotherapist Karey Lewis, should be in top condition for Champs.

The success at Petersfield is not by chance, says coach Machell Woolery who has built the programme “from scratch” by first selling the concept to the academic staff.

Once they bought into it, he said, the next step was looking at what the successful programmes in Kingston did.

Despite not even having a throwing circle and having to teach on grass, he scored big with Cornelius McIntosh who will leave the island later this year to take up a track scholarship.

Since then, Petersfield has produced a stable of decent throwers with Steven Crooks, who won the Class 3 discus/shot put double last week with a new record 12.77m in the latter, set to be the best among them.

Oshane Turner, who won three events on Saturday, the Class 2 800m and 1500m as well as the Open 5,000m, won the award for the Overall Boys’ Champion.

Woolery says he had to sacrifice the girls’ programme early on to concentrate on the boys but says the girls’ team is now coming along nicely.

His next step is to start scouting the primary schools for new talent, but while he is enjoying full cooperation from principal Eugenie Spence, he says she is leaving soon and he is not sure who will replace her.