Robinson, Coke star as Jamaicans cop 12 titles at NJCAA Champs
Nia Robinson and Shakwon Coke of Barton County College won two events each as Jamaicans won 12 titles when the three-day National Junior College Athletics Association (NJCAA) Region VI Outdoor Championships came to a close at the Cowley Sports Complex in Arkansas City, Kansas.
Robinson, the former CARIFTA Games long jump medallist while attending Rusea’s High School, smashed the Barton County women’s long jump record with a massive 6.56m (-1.7m/s) effort on Friday and added the high jump title on Saturday while Coke took both the men’s long and triple jump titles.
Meanwhile, at the NAIAWolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference Championships held at Farmers Insurance Athletic Complex (Davenport), Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday, former Mt Alvernia High sprinter Soyinne Grenyion, a freshman at Indiana Tech, won the women’s 100m in a new personal best 11.60 seconds.
Grenyion, who medalled at the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association Champs in classes four and three before returning to the US, had a previous best of 12.10 seconds and had run 12.15 seconds in the preliminaries on Thursday.
She also ran the second leg of the Indiana Tech 4x100m team that won in 46.55 seconds.
At the JUCO event in Kansas, Barton County won the men’s section with 178 points, ahead of Cloud County with 142.50 and Coffeyville on 104 points.
Cloud County flipped the script in the female section, also scoring 178 points to win, with Barton six points back on 172 and Butler CC third on 100 points.
Robinson, the national indoor champion in her first season in college, went into the championships with an outdoors best of 5.86m, had just three legal jumps, all in the first round but left her mark on the Barton County record books, breaking the 6.49m set by compatriot Dionne Rose set 31 years ago in 1990.
Her teammate, Annia Ashley, formerly of Edwin Allen, was second with 5.78m (-1.3m/s), just short of her personal best with former Holmwood Technical athlete, Faithlyn Irving of Cloud County, finishing eighth with 4.99m (-1.7m/s).
On Saturday, Robinson added the high jump with a clearance of 1.66m, Ashley was second with 1.61m and Irvin fifth with 1.51m.
Ashley won the triple jump, copping the double after winning the regional indoors with a mark of 12.46m (2.0 m/s), ahead of Robinson who had a wind-aided 12.28m (3.9 m/s) with Irving fourth with 11.87m (3.4m/s).
Coke has been untouchable in the long jump all season, and won on Friday with 8.05m (0.0m/s) and added the triple a day later with a wind-aided 16.70m (2.8m/s).
The Jamaicans combined for three titles in the throws, as the Clemson University-bound Marie Forbes just missed the Cloud County women’s discus throw record when she won with a personal best 50.80m.
Another Jamaican Nayoka Clunis had set the school record of 50.86m in 2017.
Forbes also took second place in the shot put with another lifetime best mark of 14.27m, bettering the 13.73m she threw earlier.
Indoors regional and national champion Courtney Lawrence of Cloud County continued to stock pile titles, winning the men’s shot put with 18.28m with his teammate Daniel Cope placing eighth with 14.57m in his first outdoors shot put competition in college.
Cope rebounded on Saturday to win the discus throw with a school record and personal best 54.26m with Lawrence placing third, also with a lifetime best 47.05m.
Cope had a second school record when he placed second in the hammer throw with 58.52m while Lawrence took seventh place with 47.88m, the first time he threw the hammer in college.
On the track, there were titles for Tyrese Reid, Kayan Green and Lashanna Graham, all of Barton County.
Reid cruised one minute 51.83 seconds to win the men’s 800m, a new facility record under the old 1:51.90 minutes after he had run 4:05.60 minutes for sixth place in the 1500m earlier in the day.
Green is unbeaten in college and won the women’s 800m in 2:14.37 minutes, her teammate Sasha Brown was fifth in 2:21 26 minutes with Abigail Fisher of Cloud County sixth in 2:23.34 minutes.
Graham, the Barton County record holder and JUCO leader, took the women’s 400m hurdles in 57.66 seconds then joined Green and Brown to help Barton win the women’s 4x400m relay.
On Thursday, former Calabar High athlete Andrew Betton of Cloud County amassed a personal best 6,214 points to win the men’s decathlon, surpassing his previous best of 5,543 with teammate Renaldo Savoury in 11th place with 4,425 points.
Savoury was fourth in the men’s pole vault with 4.00m with Betton eighth with a clearance of 3.70m.