FRANKFIELD, Clarendon – It took Edwin Allen some 20 years to reach the pinnacle of schoolgirl track and field; now they want to create a dynasty.

“It will be very difficult to take this title from us now,” an understandably overjoyed sports master Nascive Brown declared amidst last year’s title celebration. “The foundation is in place and I knew this was all we needed to do to get the support,” he said at the time.

Coach Michael Dyke knows a repeat won’t be easy, but he also knows last year’s success in the ISSA GraceKennedy Girls’ Athletic Championships was no fluke. It was built on strategic planning.

“It has been a long time in coming,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer at the time. “We’ve been preparing for this particular victory for some 20 years now,” he added.

Last March, Edwin Allen, based in the small farming north-west Clarendon communuity of Frankfield, created history when they ended Holmwood Technical’s nine-year hold on the Girls’ Champs trophy with a massive 131-point victory for their first title.

It was a victory effectively secured on the penultimate day of the championships, which said a lot about the depth and experience of Dyke’s team.

“To win Champs you need a rounded team, even the coach said it. They would have also learnt from the mistakes that they made in previous years,” veteran track and field journalist Paul Reid told the Central Observer.

Edwin Allen had for years showed great promise, but would falter at the final hurdle, missing out in 2010 and 2011 by 13 and six points, respectively.

“At Champs, you always have a situation where the favourite (athlete) ends up losing and another athlete just comes from nowhere and win because nothing is really cast in stone,” reasoned Reid.

This year, Edwin Allen have found themselves in an unfamiliar position: they are now the hunted and the likes of Holmwood Technical, Vere Technical, St Jago, St Elizabeth Technical and Manchester High will have a jolly time being the hunters.

How they respond to the challenge will speak to their ability to follow in the footsteps of Vere and Holmwood who went on to win multiple championships after maiden success.

“They have looked pretty good all year and even without Marleena Eubanks (their top middle-distance athlete who suffered a head injury in training when she was accidentally hit by a discus) they should be a pretty strong team,” noted Reid.

“I think it will be a close Champs,” he added, “a battle between them and Holmwood. Vere will probably finish third. That’s how it has really been over the years. The central region usually dominates Girls’ Champs.”