By BVIAA
The BVI’s 4×4 team of Lakeisha “Mimi” Warner, Tarika “Tinker Bell” Moses, Taylor Hill and Jonel Lacey, showing their silver medal. Photo: Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
Anchor leg Jonel Lacey capped off her Carifta Games career in fine fashion on Monday night, to end the 44th edition of the regional premier Jr. Championships at the Kim Collins Stadium in Bird Rock, St. Kitts and Nevis, helping the BVI to snatch the U20 Girls 4x400m Relay silver medal from the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago, ending the competition with two silver and one bronze medal.
With Jamaica winning its seventh straight relay of the games, it came down to see who would grab the remaining medals from among the three teams—and who would go home without. The BVI—with its quarter that won the 2013 IAAF World Youth Championships Medley Relay together for the first time—they trailed the Bahamas as sprinter Taylor Hill ran a strong leg after getting the stick from Tarika “Tinker Bell” Moses—who wasn’t at her best—and held off the Trinidad and Tobago runner trying to pass at the exchange.
Lacey immediately put the team in third place behind the Bahamas with Trinidad and Tobago challenging. Lacey—who won individual silver in the 400m Intermediate Hurdles on Sunday night—unleashed a ferocious kick over the last 120m, surging past the Bahamas runner and kept the distance for the silver medal ahead of Trinidad and Tobago, finishing in 3:46.43—the territory’s 40 Carifta Games medal in its history.
It was the first time the BVI had fielded an U20 Girls 4x400m Relay since it began participating in the Carifta Games in 1976.
The final day began with Tynelle Gumbs in the U20 Girls Javelin Throw with a heave of 37.90m—the second best mark of her career—during the morning session, to finish sixth overall. She was seventh in the Discus Throw during the evening session with a best effort of 38.86m. Twin sister Trevia finished fifth with a personal best twirl—while cracking the 40m mark for the first time in her career—with a heave of 40.18m. She beat Tynelle for the second consecutive time, increasing her best from 38.74 in her last meet in Arizona.
The afternoon didn’t start off well for the BVI as U20 Girls 100m Hurdler, Deya Erickson, who was in medal contention and clipped the fifth hurdle, lost her balance, stumbled into the next hurdle and disappointingly, did not finish the race.
Moses, a 2013 U17 Girls 400m silver medalist, ran a strong race her first 800m at a championships level, but finished fourth in 2:14.80 in her outdoor debut in the event, after running 2:12.46 indoors.
Beyonce DeFreitas —the only 14-year old to make the U18 Girls 200m final— ran a personal best of 24.50 seconds to place fifth, with a +1.5 meters per second tailwind, running from Lane 7. She lowered her best from 24.79 in the prelims. Only eight other BVI athletes have run faster.
In the U20 Girls 200m, running from the inside lane, Nelda Huggins had a sixth place finish in a wind aided 23.92 seconds aided by a +4.3 tailwind. U.S. Virgin Islands’ Tashira McIntosh was eighth in 24.17.
Triple Jumper Akeem Bradshaw, competing in the U20 Boys division, finished eight after getting a best measurement of 14.18m.
