AS the Edwin Allen High girls’ team got the plaudits — and understandably so — after their eighth-straight Champs title and ninth overall, the boys also had plenty to cheer about following their commendable fifth-place finish at last week’s championships.

Led by the impressive sprinter Bryan Levell, who won the 100m-200m Class One double, the boys tallied 95 points and bettered their seventh-place showing at the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships last year.

Champions Kingston College (372 points), Jamaica College (300.83), Calabar High (170) and St Jago High (147) were the schools to finish ahead of Edwin Allen’s boys this season.

And with the right kind of resources, boys’ team Head Coach Leon Powell believes Edwin Allen have the potential to prepare a unit that can rival the success of the girls and challenge the dominance of the traditional boys’ heavyweights.

“It is possible, but it’s really and truly difficult,” he told the Jamaica Observer after a celebratory morning devotion at the school’s base in Frankfield, north-western Clarendon on Monday.

“The [Edwin Allen] girls are so dominant. We’d need a lot of support to get that because we just had 22 boys at Champs; in order to challenge for the championships we’d need at least 50 to 60 quality boys to have a chance,” he added while noting that historically the top schools at Boys’ Champs are almost exclusively all-boy institutions.

For now, he said he is content to make small, progressive steps toward realising that ultimate dream, with the team showing all-round strength.

“It’s not just on the track that we are doing well. We have Christopher Young who is World leader in the shot put and we have [Trevor] Gunzell, who is not a junior but was a leading thrower in terms of high schools in Jamaica. We are doing well as a team. It’s not a big team but we have quality,” he said.

“Last year we came seventh, and we said at the start of the season that even if we should place sixth this time around, we wanted to improve the number of points scored. And looking to next season, we want to improve either our placing or the number of points. Either way, it will be a success,” he reasoned.

Principal Jermaine Harris, who has only been in charge for seven months, said the boys’ programme has the backing of the school board.

He said one challenge has been to get more boys into track and field.

“We have been pumping resources over the years. One thing is to encourage more male athletes to take up track and field because most of them love football — but the fact that we’ve placed fifth will be a motivator for the males.

“It’s difficult to compete with the all-boy schools but one day I think we will get there. We finished fifth and next year we might be in the top three, but who knows? We are realistic and it’s going to be challenging to have both male and female teams challenging for titles,” Harris told the Observer.