WHILE most track and field fans at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships last week were concentrating on what was expected to be another battle to the wire between female track giants Edwin Allen and Holmwood Technical, not many expected newcomers Hydel High to make such an impact over such a short time.

Hydel’s head coach Corey Bennett said he was expecting to get over 200 points for the first time, but conceded he was not expecting a top-three finish.

“No, we were not surprised by the points total,” Bennett told the Jamaica Observer at the end of Champs last Saturday night. “We were not sure the points would have taken us to third place.”

Showing all-round strength, but especially potent in the sprints among the younger age groups and the jumping events, Hydel High amassed 229 points to finish third, both firsts for the Ferry, St Catherine-based institution.

Edwin Allen High romped to their second title in three years, scoring 337.5 points, well ahead of second-placed St Jago High (263) with last year’s champions Holmwood Technical a disappointing fourth (211.5) and former champions Vere Technical rounding out the top-five with 141 points.

Hydel have come a far way in a short time from 46 points and 11th place in 2010, and were 10th a year later with 42.5 points, but that was to be their last time outside the top five. In 2012 they were fifth with 114 points and last year they piled up 157.5 points to maintain their top-five position.

Hydel forced fans to take notice of their intent as they led the points’ standing overnight between Thursday evening and early Friday before Edwin Allen took over after the ninth final.

Bennett said while there were some setbacks, the surprises outweighed them as “things started to fall into place”.

Bennett, who heads a team that includes assistants Richard Johnson, Joseph Small, Linval Swaby and Joseph Wilkie, said the team started Champs “very well” and added some of the surprises came in the throws.

“We got some surprises in the throws. I was not really surprised by (Shadae Lawrence) winning the Class One discus throw, but the (Devia Brown’s) third place finish in the Class Two shot put was a big surprise,” he said.

Additionally, he said the work they put into the jumpers paid off, as they performed “as we expected”. Hydel’s jumpers accounted for 64 of their points.

Overall, Bennett is satisfied with the girls’ programme at the school, and after a setback, will be looking to get the boys’ programme back on track.

“The programme is pretty much where it is supposed to be,” he told the Observer. “We have hit our targets over the last three years in terms of points and our points target this year was met and now we just go back to the drawing board for next year and see where we go from there.”

As for the boys, he admitted: “We had some disciplinary problems and had to make some decisions and hopefully we have ironed them out.”

“We plan to revise the structure of the boys’ programme and build from the bottom up like the girls’ programme and see how that works (as) we do have some youngsters and we hope to see them next year,” Bennett closed.