The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net When the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) opens its 2012 Scotiabank National High School Track & Field Championships on Thursday, no overall champion will be decided. Instead, teams will have to implement a strategy to see who can bring out the best in their boys and girls in the under-13, under-15, under-17 and under-20 divisions. The championships, which is expected to feature teams from New Providence, Grand Bahama and the Family Islands, is slated to begin around 9am at the Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium. With the performances produced so far this year, many people were looking forward to the clash between some of the schools like the St Augustine's College Big Red Machine, the Queen's College Comets and the CR Walker Knights. The Big Red Machine are coming off their 24th consecutive victory in the BAISS by just 48 points over the Comets. But with no championship title to shoot for, SAC's head coach William 'Knucklehead' Johnson said they are eager to match their athletes against the competition. "I think we will hold our own. We have a few athletes who will be very competitive in this meet," Johnson said. "But as far as trying to win the divisional titles, we will have to try to balance that with what's best for our senior athletes or the more elite athletes vying for the national teams. "Someone like Shaunae (Miller) will get to run the 400 metres but we believe that she can actually post the fastest time ran by a woman this year. There are a number of other athletes like Deyvanne Charlton who will in their specialty events. So in the interest of really going after points, we have to be aware of what these athletes have to achieve." Even though the focus will be on their athletes competing in their specialties, Johnson is still confident that St Augustine's College will be very competitive. "Although they haven't given an overall trophy since the 1990s, this is still a meet for us to be very competitive," Johnson said. "We've been able to win most of the divisional categories. I think this is going to be a very special year where we have some people who are poised to do some very special things in track and field. We must try to balance that with going after winning as many of the divisional titles that we can." SAC, however, will be without the services of a few athletes, including Lorman Johnson - the top under-27 boys' sprinter - who was injured during the BAISS meet. Fresh off their ninth straight victory last week in the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association (GSSSA) championships, CR Walker coach Floyd Armbrister said the challenge will be for his Knights to shine again. "Our meet just finished on Friday so we are just trying to put our puzzle together," he said. "It's going to be a very tight meet but we hope to be ready." Armbrister said with the Nationals so close, Armbrister said he heard "through the grapevine" that there are some schools who will not be fielding a team because they won't get to compete for an overall title. "After watching SAC and QC battle for the BAISS title and we went after the GSSSA title, it's hard to compete in the Nationals and not get a chance to win an overall title," Armbrister said. "We are going to watch and see how the meet turns out." Efforts to contact BAAA president Mike Sands for comments were unsuccessful up to press time last night. It's not certain just how many schools and athletes have registered to compete.