St Mary High School retained their girls’ title while Port Antonio High School upstaged Buff Bay High School to win the boys’ section of the Eastern Athletics Championships at the National Stadium yesterday.

The event was scaled back to a one-day event, down from the usual two days and had only 10 participating schools this year.

St Mary High comfortably retained their title as they amassed 208.50 points. Buff Bay High, who tallied 140 points to finish second, held on to the runners-up spot by a half point, as Titchfield High finished in third with 139.5 points. Glengoffe High with 73 points were fourth, Port Antonio High with 67 were fifth, Morant Bay High with 35 points were sixth, Oberlin High with 24 points were seventh, and St Mary’s College with two finished eighth.

On the boys’ side, Port Antonio did well to upstage the defending champions after they tallied 152 points to score a comfortable 22-point victory over Titchfield High, who tallied 130 points for second. Buff Bay were relegated to third place after they could only manage 98 points.

St Mary High with 94 points were fourth, Morant Bay High with 69 were fifth, Glengoffe High with 47 points were sixth, St Mary’s College with 37 points were seventh, and Oberlin High with 27 points were eighth.

St Mary High girls’ captain Sydonie McIntosh led from the front for her school as she took the 100m/200m sprint double in Class One.

McIntosh won the 100m in 12.51 seconds (-0.3m/s) ahead of the Buff Bay pair of Brittany Reid (13.34secs) and Shanieka Brown (14.12secs). She then returned to win the 200m in 26.44secs (-1.9m/s) ahead of another Buff Bay pair of Dejrah Morris (29.27secs) and Shanieka Brown (29.58secs). She was also the lead-off leg on her school’s gold medal-winning 4x400m team.

Shone Walters was another standout for St Mary High, winning the 1500m/800m double in Class Two. Walters won the 1500m in 4:57.32 minutes, way ahead of second place Deneisha Paulwell of Buff Bay High in 6:31.16 minutes.

She then won the 800m in 2:20.55 minutes ahead of Shaneal Clarke Giddings of Port Antonio in 2:24.63 minutes, and Vanessa Ward of Titchfield High who was third in 2:33.32 minutes.

Alexia Austin of Glengoffe High was the only girl to break a record on the day when she clocked 14.52secs to erase the 11-year-old Class Two girls 100m hurdles record of 14.74secs, set by Felecia Ferron of Morant Bay High in 2010.

Port Antonio’s Ainsley Brown took the 1500m/800m double in Class Two. He won the 1500m in 4:27.74 minutes ahead of Jeremiah Hinds of Glengoffe second in 4:37.57 minutes and his teammate Andre Nembhard third in 4:48.27 minutes.

The 800m was a lot more challenging for Brown as he had to battle to the line to deny Devounie Williams of St Mary High. Brown was credited with a time of 2:03.35 minutes to Hinds’s 2:03.36 minutes. Shavan Jarrett of Titchfield was third in 2:08.08 minutes.

Joshua Lawrence of St Mary’s College (4:43.65mins) got the better of Ricardo Carr of Morant Bay High (5:00.97mins) in the Class Three boys’ 1500m while Kevon Cammock of Glengoffe High was third in 6:53.99 minutes. But Carr was able to turn the tables on Lawrence in the 800m as he won in 2:14.11 minutes. Lawrence was second in 2:15.43 minute, while Rasheed Grant of St Mary High was third in 2:38.16 minutes.

Javain Edwards of Oberlin High broke the boys’ javelin open record of 52.33m which was set by Raymond Richards of Buff Bay last year, when he threw 53.20m on his first effort.

Both winning schools closed the show win fine style with gold medal performances in the 4×400. St Mary High won in 4:00.64 minutes, while Port Antonio won in 3:24.56 minutes.