SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — A number of battles are expected on today’s second and final day of the County of Cornwall Athletics Association Western Championships, to be held at the St Elizabeth Technical Sports Complex in Santa Cruz starting at 9:00 am.

In addition to the overall boys’ and girls’ title races there will be some exciting duels on the track and in the field as athletes try to stake their claims with the ISSA national championships a mere six weeks away.

Petersfield High girls and Munro College boys lead their respective standings from Wednesday’s first day at Herbert Morrison but both will be expecting the other contenders to make a push today, with almost 60 finals in eight classes for both boys and girls set to be decided.

St Elizabeth Technical High (STETHS) are the defending champions in both sections and Head Coach Bryan James said earlier this week they would not go down without a fight.

The STETHS coach said they were dedicating the titles to former long-time coach and Vice-principal Eldemire Smith, who passed away last weekend after a brief illness.

Petersfield High have a razor thin half-point lead in the girls’ section 51-50.50 after six finals were decided, while William Knibb Memorial are third on 27.50, Mt Alvernia High are fourth on 27 points, and Maggotty High in fifth place on 12 points.

Munro College, who are back to full strength for the first time in years, lead the boys’ section with 63 points after eight finals, STETHS are on 38 points, followed by Herbert Morrison Technical on 33, Maggotty High are fourth on 28, and Petersfield High are in fifth place on 27 points.

Only 14 of the 20 finals that were down to be contested on Wednesday were decided as a decision was taken that all long jump finals would be held today while there will be the semi-finals and finals in the 100m as well.

The Class One girls’ 100m final is expected to be one of the hotly contested events in which defending champion Petersfield High’s Alexis James, a member of the Jamaican 4x100m relay gold medal-winning team and the 100m hurdles silver medallist at last year’s World Athletics Under-20 championships, will line up against Mt Alvernia High’s Carleta Bernard, an ISSA Champs medallist last year.

Both runners have identical personal bests of 11.44 seconds, both set at last year’s ISSA national champs. And while Bernard, who is in her first year as a Class 1 athlete, will also contest the 200m, James will seek to retain her 100m hurdles title for which she set a meet record of 13.91 seconds last year.

Herbert Morrison’s Deandre Daley should retain the boys’ Class One sprint double while William Knibb Memorial’s Lavania Williams should oblige in the Class 2 girls.