The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

JUNIOR college track and field athletes will be in competition this week looking to stake their claim as national champions and a possible opportunity to progress to NCAA Division I programmes.

Several Bahamians will compete this week in the NJCAA Division I Outdoor Championships hosted at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas.

Leading the group will be Western Texas standout Ian Kerr who will compete in the 100m, 200m and 4x100 metre relay.

Kerr enters today’s 100m preliminary round at 3:15pm, with a season’s leading time in the event at 10.15 secs. He set the mark, a new school record and NJCAA leading mark, earlier this month at the Texas Tech Track Meet.

Kerr will return to contest the 200m prelims at 5:10pm and he enters ranked No.10 in the 200m with a seed time of 20.96 seconds.

His 4x100m team is ranked sixth overall with a time of 40.68.

It was the second consecutive year that Kerr qualified for NJCAA nationals in the indoor and outdoor 100 and 200m events. In 2015, he was also a member of the 1600-metre relay national championship team.

Last fall, Kerr signed a letter of intent to join the University of Texas Longhorns in a class that enters Austin, Texas in Fall 2016 ranked No. 1 in the nation in six events along with seven more Top Five’s and three more events ranked in the Top 20.

“My experience at WTC has been life-changing,” Kerr said. “Texas has great facilities. The coaches made me feel comfortable. I could not pass up this opportunity.”

Longhorns associate head coach Tonia Buford-Bailey said: “Ian will be able to fill some gaps in the shorter sprints, which allows us to continue to build upon our men’s sprints programme. He competed at the World Youth Championships and currently at the Juco level, so we expect him to be able to contribute right away.”

Cliff Resias, of Iowa Western, enters the 100m ranked No.8 with a time of 10.30, turned in last week at the NJCAA Region XI Outdoor Championships. His 4x100m team, with a time of 40.77, is ranked eighth.

Anthony Adderley of the Barton Community College Cougars is ranked at No.11 in the 200m with a time of 21.00. He will also be a member of both the 4x100 (ranked fourth at 40.23) and 4x400m (ranked fourth at 3:10.82) relay teams.

Adderley finished seventh in the 200m at the NJCAA Indoor Championships in March.

Mesha Newbold, competing for Iowa Central, will run in the preliminary rounds of the 400mH at 4:20pm. She is seeded fourth in the event with a time of 1:02.73.

Newbold already achieved All-American honours during the indoor season in the 60m hurdles and distance medley relay.

The Bahamas has always featured standout athletes performing at the NJCAA championships and who eventually advance to the NCAA programmes.

One particularly talented class competed at the NJCAAs in 2012. Shavez Hart and Trevorvano Mackey both competed for South Plains College.

Hart produced a winning time of 10.28 secs in the 100 meters while Mackey finished third in 10.35 secs. Another Bahamian, Alfred Higgs, competed for Iowa Central Community College was seventh in 10.57.

Each of the three went on to compete at the Division I level with hart at Texas A and M, Mackey at Texas Tech and Higgs at South Florida.