Rodriques clocks 24.16
By Christopher Hunt
photos by www.wingedfootfotos.com
NEW YORK – It was the way that Boys & Girls coach James Jackson sat in the stands, the way his team routinely walked about. They watched the races. They cheered. They showed no more intensity than before.
And no less either.
They had all done this before and come to expect it. So when Jackson was asked how many PSAL championships his team had total he gave the best answer he could.
“I don’t even know,” he said.
That doesn’t mean Jackson and his team don’t take pride in being the top program in New York City. It’s just another step in a ladder than climbs much higher. Boys & Girls won the PSAL title with 80 points. Clinton finished second with 50 and A.P. Randolph third with 42.
“We set our goals very high at the start of the season,’ Jackson said. “Then the next step from that is how we adjust our attitude toward those goals.”
The PSAL championships at Ichan Stadium on Randalls Island Sunday showed the sprinting carousel at Boys & Girls that makes the team a perennial championship contender. They managed to score with two teams in the 4x100 and 4x400 for a total of 24 points and another eight points in the 4x800 that buried DeWitt Clinton and A.P. Randolph, which both stayed close until the relays.
“We do that with mostly freshman and sophomore and some juniors,” Jackson said of his ‘B’ teams. “They get the experience of being in a position of us depending on them so they’ve been there before.”
That’s how he secures success in the sprints, since Boys & Girls have any athletes even compete in the field events or races longer than 800
meters. But he did some experimenting. Virginia-bound senior Meghan Gillespie finished second in the 400 hurdles, her first time ever competing the event, in 63.54. Cardozo’s Dalilah Muhammad won in 59.75.
Nadonnia Rodriques, dealing with pain in her right knee, won the 400 in 55.12 then won the 200 in 24.16, a personal best and the fastest-time in the state this season. Rodriques also ran on Boys & Girls’ 4x100 ‘A’ team, that finished second and qualified for the state meet.
“We’re happy,” Rodriques said about the win. “This is nothing new but it’s nice because this is our last one together for the seniors.”
Samantha Francis of Robeson won the 100 meters in 11.93. Janice Jackson of Medgar Evers won the 100 hurdles in 14.51 after running a personal-best 14.39 in the trials. She couldn’t help but show her frustration after the race because although her times where her bests, she believes she can run much faster.
“’It was messed up,” Jackson said about the race. “It was the same thing as always. My have to have a better start. I have to work on my start and my finish.”
James Madison’s Brittany Killebrew came from behind to win the 800 in 2:17.17 and Cardozo’s Alison Lee won the 1,500 in 4:49.96, nearly 10 seconds ahead of the next finisher.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.