Kingston College (KC) Head Coach Leaford Grant exudes confidence that his team will defend their Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Championship title during the upcoming five-day event set to take place at the National Stadium from Tuesday to Saturday.

KC, renowned as one of the most dominant high schools in boys’ championships history, dominated their opponents last year, clinching their third consecutive title and 34th overall victory.

With an impressive tally of 366 points, the North Street-based institution outperformed 22-time champions Jamaica College (JC) by 67 points. Calabar High School secured third place with 207 points, St Jago placed fourth with 118.5, and St Elizabeth Technical High School came in fifth with 116 points.

Grant says morale in the KC camp is high and they are ready.

“The boys are quite confident because we have prepared well, and hopefully we will be able to defend the title this year by the will of God,” he said. “You know that we have to bring God into everything, so we are quite confident.

“Some meets, we would have shown up based on the compact season this year, where we have a lot of quality meets running close to each other so we have to plan properly.

“Some meets we would have showed up in full force and some meets you would have realised that we kind of toned down, so overall, I think our plans are working really well and I think that we will give a proper account of ourselves when the time comes.”

Grant says that his rivals have improved in various areas and he anticipates a tighter competition this year, but he remains optimistic about KC’s chances of defending the title due to the team’s depth and consistent improvement across events.

“I think we have enough depth, but I think we might be short in a couple of events. I don’t want to name them,” he said. “The boys are also improving in those events, so in terms of depth, I think we are fine and we should be able to score points. We don’t have a lot of winners, but we have scorers.”

Grant says that there is no added pressure on the team to win this year’s title because most of them are accustomed to winning and they know what will be required from them to win.

“There is no pressure on us because after doing it for a couple of years you kind of understand there will be pressure, but you try not to showcase that,” he said. “No one, especially our administration, is pressuring the boys because we just asked them to do their best and their best will be good enough for us.”

KC, who will be sending over 70 athletes to this year’s championship, will be led by team captains Yourie Lawrence-Clarke — a favourite for the Class One 100m title — and Class One discus thrower Antwon Hilly Fuller Walkin.