By Christopher Hunt
NEW YORK – Transit Tech coach Sydney McIntosh said the tide of the meet turned when Dexter Bollers won the 400 hurdles.
That was the second event. So maybe the tide didn’t quite change but that’s where the wave started to grow. And it wasn’t that Bollers’ win was an upset, it just wasn’t penciled in among the points that McIntosh expected.
But that’s how the meet went. Transit Tech snatched most of the points they were supposed to and then even a few that they weren’t, repeating as PSAL champions Saturday with 100 points at Ichan Stadium on Randalls Island.
“I was ecstatic over him winning that race,” McIntosh said. “When Kameron (George) wins, it’s expected. Dexter’s win: I was very excited.”
McIntosh said that because Bollers tanked at the Brooklyn Borough championships and finished eighth in the 400 hurdles in 59.94. Bollers said he was sick that day. Clearly, he’s feeling much better. He won Saturday in a personal-best 54.69. But even with Bollers’s race setting the tone, it was the throwers that carried the team scoring 46 points in three throwing events, nearly half of the 100 points that Transit scored to win the title. Sheepshead Bay finished second with 73.
“When they go over there they’re on a mission to win,” Bollers said of the throwers. “We know we don’t have to worry about the throwers. They’ll do what they have to do and all we have to do is our job.”
Transit took first, second and fifth in the shot put led by Errol Jeffery’s personal best 53-feet, 0.25 inch throw on his third attempt. Chad Delcia finished second (49-7.25) and Michael Telesford fifth (48-5.50). Telesford won the discus in 146-5 followed by Jeffery in second in 145-7 and Delcia fourth in 141-1.
Then for punctuation’s sake, Jeffery ventured into the javelin and took fifth with a throw of 137-1, also a personal best in his second time competing in the event.
Kameron George won the 1,600 and 3,200 for Transit for the second straight year. He first sat on Stuyvesant’s Daniel Hyman Cohen in the 3,200 and then outkicked him in the last 300 meters to win in 9:38.69. Then he took the pace in the 1,600 and held off a charge by Clara Barton’s Matthew Heath for his second win in 4:28.88.
“I’ve done this same thing indoor,” he said. “I’ve been doing the same thing since I joined the team. Pretty much, I’m the only distance runner on the team so this is my responsibility.”
The look of the team differs vastly from great Transit Tech teams of years past.
“It’s a transition,” McIntosh said. “Over the years we’ve been sprint, sprint, sprint. But things change and you work with what you have. We’ve become a little more diversified.”
Most of the team talked about taking responsibility and coming together after Julian Wood and Malik Sykes quit the team before the outdoor season. George and Elijah and Fard Rollock all compete on the same club team together and their involvement with the club and a conflict in training styles caused a rift between the two athletes and the coach.
McIntosh said that the situation caused more cohesion on the team than disruption.
“Once people started dropping off the team we just came together and everyone had to step up,” Bollers said.
Sheepshead Bay couldn’t match the manpower that Transit Tech provided but they dominated the areas they competed. John Thomas won the 400 in 48.57, came back later to win the 200 in 21.68 and then made the difference when Midwood had the lead in the 4x100 to give Sheepshead Bay the win in 41.91.
Darryl Bradshaw, who committed to Bethune-Cookman, won the 110 hurdles in 14.16 and will be the favorite at the state meet.
No Medgars Evers??: The PSAL city championships went on noticeably without sprint powerhouse Medgar Evers, robbing the state meet of chance to see Jermaine Brown and girls hurdles favorite Janice Jackson. Assistant coach Shaun Dietz said he submitted his team’s entry Sunday night, before the Monday deadline. He said when he check on the entry Monday evening he discovered his team was not entered.
Dietz then called PSAL commissioner Dwayne Burnett, hoping to resolution the mix up but said that Burrnett told him “there was nothing he could do.” Dietz did attend the meet however and said he was helping some athletes from Campus Magnet.
“I can understand in a situation like this that you penalize the coach,” Dietz said. “I’m not putting all the blame on (Burnett) but the kids have to be the No. 1 priority. They can’t enter themselves. There had to be a way to work it out for the kids.”