PHILADELPHIA, Sporting Alert – Jamaican schools Holmwood Technical and Edwin Allen High School set the standing in the heats of the high schools girls’ 4x100m at the 2016 Penn Relays on Thursday.
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The fastest qualifiers for the championship race came from the Small schools category where Holmwood Tech breezed through their preliminaries in a category record equalling time of 45.64 secs.
The former champions ran comfortably away from the rest of entrants in the heat and were the only team to break the 46-barrier overall.
Edwin Allen High, in the meantime, were also impressive when clocking a brisk 45.79 seconds to set the standard in the Large schools girls’ 4x100m heats, which was the second fastest overall between the small and large schools.
Competing in the second heat of the event in the morning session, Edwin Allen totally dominated their opponents in the race to race across the finishing line as the fastest qualifiers overall.
The exciting clash between the two fastest teams from both the Small and Large schools events will come in Friday’s Championship Final.
Other notable qualifiers for the championship race were Excelsior (JAM) 46.55, Nansemond River (Suffolk, VA) 46.55 and St. Catherine (JAM) 47.08.
In the college women’s 4x100m heats, Tennessee and Oregon set the early standard for is expected to be a very good championship race on Friday.
College women’s 4×100 heats: @Vol_Track (44.50) and @OregonTF (44.76) leading the way https://t.co/id2ktPXk3H pic.twitter.com/AyvtXsXWrM
— Penn Relays (@pennrelays) April 28, 2016
Auburn also won their heat and will advance to the championships race after posting 45.50 to take the fourth heat, with Clemson running 46.33 to take heat 5.
Meanwhile, in the individual events, Anna Cockerel of Providence Day (Charlotte, NC) won the high school girls’ 400m hurdle with a time of 57.38, beating Edwin Allen’s Shannon Kalawan, who ran 58.80 and Brandee’ Johnson of Nansemond River (Suffolk, VA), 1:00.26.
Albany’s Grace Claxton won the college women’s championship race in 56.69 ahead of Tia-Adana Belle from St. Augustine’s (56.72) and Rushell Clayton of UWI Mona (JAM), 57.01.
The winning time was a new person best of Claxton, who finished third overall last year, and she was delighted to have finally put together a complete race for the event this season.
“It’s been kind of tough, I’m still new at hurdles. The past few weeks I’ve been at 58, but this is an Olympic year so I’m trying to qualify but I’ve been a little disappointed because I’m not seeing the time,” she said.
“Then today, at the perfect meet with perfect competition, I just came out and did 56, a huge PR for me.”
She added: “Last year I came in third overall. This is the first step before going to the Olympics so this is like a dream come true for me.”
