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Dominic Sixth
(18 February 2001) - Dominic Johnson had not had much competition in his first two indoor meets this year. It was entirely a different story at the University of Northern Iowa's Superstars Track and Field Invitational last Sunday.
The men's pole vault field included American record holder Jeff Hartwig and Olympic champion Nick Hysong. Hartwig was the eventual winner, clearing 5.72m (18'09.25") for the victory. Dominic - listed as "Dominique" - cleared 5.42m (17'09.25") to finish sixth. Hysong failed to clear a height.
Dominic's opening height was actually his second best this indoor season, but well short of his career best. In January, with a clearance of 5.45m, he won the men's open division at the North American Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada. At the Northern Arizona Invitational, he needed only 5.35m for victory, and he was a full foot better than the second placed vaulter. Dominic is awaiting word from St. Lucian authorities and the International Olympic Committee as to when he's due to travel to Formia, Italy to live and train for the next two years.
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Worrell Swims Well
(18 February 2001) - We always hear about David Peterkin, but there are other young St. Lucian swimmers out there. 18-year-old national swimmer David Worrell is a student at Prince Georges Community College, and he swims with Team Elite Swim Club, both in Maryland. His club's coach is also the head swim coach for Howard University. Last weekend, David was in the Black History Invitational Swim Meet, a large event featuring swimmers from as far afield as California and Atlanta.
David's best times in the men's 100-yard freestyle were 51 and 52 seconds and he was first in his heat. His finish of 1:05 in the 100-yard backstroke was two seconds off the cut for state championships and he was third in his heat. For the 200 free, David swam 2:02 and was second in his heat. Team Elite also did well in medley and freestyle relays.
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Study In Contrasts
 (17 February 2000) - One is thirty; the other is half that age. The Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development, Youth and Sports calls them St. Lucia's outstanding sports personalities of 2000.
John Eugene is a middle order batsman for Gros Islet, Saint Lucia and Windward Islands. He turned thirty last August, but he enjoyed a beautiful renaissance in 2000 after showing a great deal of promise during the early 1990's. Back then he scored a tremendous century at Kensington Oval against a fearsome Barbados bowling attack. Last year, coming back strong after several years of injuries, he made a century against South Africa A for the Windward Islands. It was surely one of the highlights of his year, but not necessarily more so than his record four centuries for repeat champions Gros Islet in the Piton Beer domestic tournament. John was called up to the Windwards for the Red Stripe Bowl regional limited overs series, where he was third leading scorer.
As if to celebrate his award, which was presented in absentia Saturday evening, John hit his third first-class century, against Guyana at Bourda. John's first innings knock of 139, which easily bested his previous high score of 31, was the first-day highlight of the seventh round Busta Cup match. Batting number five for the Windwards, most of John's runs came from boundaries. He then made 46 in the second innings as Windwards lost.
For Sportsman of the Year, John beat out national volleyballer and Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States selectee John Calderon, Davis Cup tennis player Kane Easter, national pole vault record holder Dominic Johnson, and OECS swimming champion Jamie Peterkin.
The other principal award Saturday evening went to fifteen-year-old Levern Spencer, national women's high jump record holder. The Entrepot Secondary School student overcame national under-sixteen netball skipper Sarah Alexander (photo) and swimmer Natasha George for the junior award. She took the main title over senior national netball captain Germaine Altifois, OECS swimming champion Sheri Scobie Henry and national football captain Lisa Vidal. It's the second straight win for a track and field athlete.
Levern's 2000 accomplishments included two bronze medals at the National Championships, in sprints. As usual, she took gold in the women's high jump, an event in which she broke the national record several times in the past year. How does her ability stack up regionally? She was the bronze medallist in her age group at the Caritfa Junior Games, and with her career-best 1.80m leap in St. Vincent and the Grenadines late last year, she's the gold medal favorite going into Barbados in April this year. She started the season this year with a great leap of 1.69m, an outstanding opener.
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Jean Dominates Albright Invitational
(17 February 2001) - Division III Albright College hosted the annual Albright Invitational on Saturday. Fifteen schools were represented at the meet. Albright was led by St. Lucian freshman Laura Jean who won three events. Jean teamed up with Holly Whitpan, Steph Manzella, and Rachel Williams to finish first in the 4x1 lap relay with a time of 1:30.5. Individually, Jean won the 200 M and 55 M Dash with times of 27.7 and 7.3, respectively. The indoor track and field team will participate in the MAC Championships next weekend at Lebanon Valley on Saturday, 24 February.
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Ewan Fouls Out After Big Game
 (17 February 2001) - One thing can certainly be said of the Washburn University Ichabods basketball team, ranked 6th in NCAA Division II. These guys play with a great deal of composure, undaunted by late-game double-digit deficits and indomitable in the face of adversity.
Down by 13 with 14 minutes to play, the Ichabods put together another furious rally and pulled out a 77-74 victory over Missouri Western on Saturday night. Keying the rally was 6'8" 230 lb senior power forward/centre Ewan Auguste, a graduate of St. Mary's College in Castries, St. Lucia. Ewan fouled out, but not before he scored 19 points on 7-10 shooting (5-9 from free throw range) to lead five Ichabods in double figures. Auguste added 11 rebounds, one of two players with a double double. Randolph Williams (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) scored 16 points.
A bucket by Auguste off an offensive rebound had the Bods within 70-66 with 5:20 to play, but 31 seconds later he drew his fifth foul. Without their offensive and defensive leader, WU came storming back to tie the game up with less than two minutes left. Strong perimeter defense was at the heart of the run, as WU held their opponents scoreless for four minutes.
"That was as good as it gets," WU coach Bob Chipman said. "To do that in that arena against that team is as good as it gets. Down 61-48 and then Ewan fouls out, it looks pretty hopeless. But this team never gives up." Ichabods now are guaranteed no worse than a share of the MIAA regular-season championship. The Ichabods, 21-3 overall with an 11-game winning streak, are 14-2 in the conference with two games remaining.
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A Rose By Any Other
(13 February 2001) - Dane Magloire is making a name for himself as a long jumper, but other people are making his name as well. The National Collegiate Athletics Association in the United States and the International Amateur Athletics Federation in Zurich have taken over as godparents. NCAA calls him "Maglorie" and he's listed as "Dwayne" Magloire by IAAF.
No matter what he's called, Dane is an outstanding athlete. Recently he dropped a spot in NCAA's Division II men's long jump rankings. The national outdoor champion in that event, he's second to his St. Augustine's College teammate Maurice English, who cleared 25'08.5" at Christopher Newport on 8 February. At that same meet, Dane cleared 25'07" to come within an inch of his person best. He improved his season best by five inches. The 25-year-old from Dennery in St. Lucia is still atop the DII men's triple jump standings, with a clearance of 53'02.25" at Virginia Tech in January. He's two inches clear of another teammate, Tim Rusan.
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National Sports Awards Saturday
(15 February 2001) - An informal poll of my journalistic brethren - I was trying to make it formal, but got no cooperation - led to the consensus that Levern Sepncer will be St. Lucia's Sportswoman of the Year 2000. The fifteen-year-old entrepot Secondary student is a track and field athlete of exceptional ability. She's a solid sprinter, with 100m and 200m bronze at national champs. Her forte, though, is the high jump, and event in which she's broken the national record time and again in the past two years.
She's a Carifta bronze medalist, with a leap of 1.73m in Grenada last year (then a national record) and after her Windward Islands Games triumph at 1.80 she's likely to be installed as gold favourite in Barbados come April. She's won without much competition locally, but she's excelled regionally in spite of not having anyone locally to push her. For heaven's sakes, she's almost as good as St. Lucia's best MALE high jumpers! On top of that, she's a good netballer, AND a good student.
The 2000 National Sports Awards will be held Saturday evening at the National Cultural Centre, and Levern's competition for the SOTY (senior) includes football skipper Lisa Vidal, netball captain Germaine Altifois and swimmer Sherri Scobie-Henry. My money is very firmly on Levern, but I've been wrong before.
As for the men, its murky water indeed, unlike last year. pole vault champion Dominic Johnson could repeat, or swimmer Jamie Peterkin could steal it. What a coup that would be for the swimming fraternity, and Organsiation of Eastern Caribbean States Sports Coordinator David Peterkin, who just happens to be Jamie's father!
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Ewan Goes For 800
(15 February 2001) - Washburn University (Topeka, Kansas) have climbed up to the No. 6 spot in national Division II basketball rankings, this after a 60-58 Washburn squeaker over Central Missouri State. Washburn are 20-3 overall and 13-2 in the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association, good for first place in that conference.
Ewan Auguste, Washburn's St. Lucian centre, led the Ichabods with 18 points and Randolph Williams of St. Vincent and the Grenadines added 17. Although WU shot just 39 per cent from the field, Ewan was on fire, converting sevenof his ten shot attempts.
As the season wears on and his playing time increases, Ewan is improving from the charity stripe. He made four of five free throws in 34 minutes against CMSU. He also had a team-high seven caroms, the third person in WU history to pull down 800 rebounds. Just to show he has a well-rounded game, Ewan added three assists, two steals.
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Zeph Into National Mile
(3 February 2001) - Four runners from the University of North Florida have made provisional qualifying times for the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field National Championships. Among them is middle distance runner Zepherinus Joseph from St. Lucia, who's made the mark in the men's mile.
Competing at the Florida Invite, hosted by the University of Florida, the 25-year-old from Mon Repos led three UNF Ospreys in breaking the school mile record. All three set personal records in that event. Finishing third, Zepherinus clocked 4:11.45 to set a new UNF record.
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OECS Olympic Finalist
 (3 February 2001) - TCU Horned Frog and Olympic men's 100m finalist Kim Collins (photo left) of St. Kitts recorded an NCAA automatic qualifying mark at the Cougar Indoor Classic held in Houston Saturday.
Kim set a facility and meet record, winning the 60-meter dash in an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 6.61 seconds. He surprised many by reaching the finals of his event at the Summer Olympics last year in Sydney, Australia.
Collins was one of three Caribbean men in the finals, with Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados' Obadele Thompson.
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Top Canadian Hurdler Has Lucian Roots
 (10 February 2001) - The University of Illinois women's track team competed at the Iowa State Track Classic in Ames, Iowa, a meet featuring some of the nation's top athletes and teams, racing on the oversized, 300-meter track.
Highlighting the women at Iowa State, redshirt freshman Perdita Felicien (photo) won the 60m hurdles in a blazing time of 8.07 seconds, breaking her school mark, along with the meet and stadium record at Iowa State. Felicien broke her personal best for the second week in a row, and the fourth time this season.
The Big Ten Women's Track and Field Athlete of the Week, Felicien earned the award for the second time in three weeks of 2001 indoor competition. She had two record-setting performances the previous weekend, winning the 60 hurdles at her school meet, an hour after she broke her record the first time with a time of 8.17 seconds in the prelims of the 60 hurdles.
So why is this 20-year-old being written about here? After all, she's a Canadian, competed for that country at the 2000 Summer Olympics. But she's also a St. Lucian, her mother Cathy a health care worker from Gros Islet. Cathy lives in Pickering, Ontario with her five children. When Perdita was in Sydney last year, she met some of her "other" countrymen, and showed off a few words of Kweyol, just to prove her legitimacy. "I'm a St. Lucian," she says. "And all my family is still there; at the same time, I'm very proud to be a Canadian."
Still, Perdita can be assured that she will have some people beginning to wave their St. Lucian flags just a little bit harder when World Championships and the Olympics come around. She didn't do much better than the "other" St. Lucians in Sydney, ending her 100 hurdles campaign early, but like Verneta Lesporis, Ronald Promesse, Dominic Johnson, Jamie Peterkin and Sherri Scobie-Henry, she valued the experience.
"I was blessed to compete in an event I love as much as life. Though I was eliminated in the preliminary round, I would do it all over again. Even though the months of religious training and the exhausting 30 hours of flight to Sydney only meant exactly 13.21 seconds of running on the hottest track in the world that day, it was beyond worth it."
Stay tuned. Perdita's fast, and getting faster.
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Ewan Comes Up Big
(11 February 2001) - The Washburn University Ichabods of Topeka, Kansas clung to first place in the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletics Association with an 88-85 win over Pittsburg State on Saturday.
Trailing by as much as 12 early in the second half, Washburn took its first lead of the half with only 2:02 remaining, a putback from St. Lucian centre Ewan Auguste with 2:02 to play. The basket gave Washburn an 84-82 lead that they wouldn't relinquish the rest of the way.
Auguste recorded his 21st career double-double, dominating with 22 points on and 14 rebounds. He missed only twice from the field; though he's just 45% from the free throw line this season, he connected on 4-7 from there as well. He leads the team with 109 free throw tries this season.
Posting up consistently down low, the 6'8" 230 lb senior led the Ichabods to 50 points in the paint. The Gorillas double-teamed Ewan all night, giving him the chance to add four assists. Ewan played 33 minutes on Saturday evening. As the season wears on, his playing time is increasing, and his heady interior presence will be crucial in the postseason.
The Ichabods (19-3, 12-2 MIAA) own a one-game advantage in the MIAA with four games to go in the regular season. The Ichabods are No. 11 in the NABC Division II poll and No. 1 in the South Central Region.
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Ewan Auguste - By The Numbers
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Captains Courageous as 2K1 Netball Begins
(10 February 2001) - So, it's netball season. What exactly does that mean? Let's see: another title for Shamrock? Improvement for Elite Strikers and Orion?
The Independence Netball Championship began Saturday with a record nineteen teams taking part. According to Netball Association president Fortuna Belrose, five more teams wanted to be part of this tournament, but they came in after the registration deadline. The teams are split into three divisions, with Shamrock, Elite, Orion, Canaries, Avengers, Islanders and Dennery in the top tier.
Saturday, defending champions Shamrock opened their campaign against the young, but very talented Orion. The East Coast team features outstanding under-23 players at either end of the court, Helena St. Marie in the shooting circle and under-sixteen captain Sarah Alexander the defensive anchor. Against Shamrock, their energy and ability helped them cope early.
Shamrock's vastly experienced attacking duo of Germaine Altifois and Barbara Joseph-Theobalds were not to be denied, however. As well as repeat junior netballer of the year Alexander played, senior player of the year Altifois was that much better, the senior national skipper leading her side to a 45-36 opening game victory.
Elite Strikers beat Shamrock last year, the first team to do so domestically in over a decade. They lost former player of the year and West Indies selectee Michelle Joseph from their centre-court, did Elite, as she's gone off to study in Cuba. Still, they made a decent start to the season, trouncing Dennery 44-19.
Orion reserves were victorious over Tankers (29-20) and Mabouya beat Dennery reserves 41-21 in second division action. PYO of Patience defeated Cbony of Choiseul 38-21 (Division III).
Well over sixty games are scheduled for this tournament.
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Max, Kunta Play Well, But Lose Again
(11 February 2001) - The volleyball Knights of Queens College (New York) lost again Sunday, in spite of good games from St. Lucian players Ayinde Kunta Williams and Maxim Auguste. Playing away to Pennsylvania's St. Francis College Queens fell 30-27, 30-17, 30-22.
Maxim led all hitters with 12 kills. Kunta added 30 assists. By comparison, St. Francis sophomores Matt Farabaugh and Taylor Whitehurst combined for 15 kills, six and nine respectively. Freshman Chad O'Brien tallied 36 assists.
The Red Flash came from behind in the first game to defeat the Knights by three. In the second game, Saint Francis took a 13-6 lead to win handily by 13. In game three, the Flash were up by seven midway through the game (15-8) and went on to win the game and the match.
Former volleyball player of the year, Kunta came into this game leading Queens with 222 assists. One of the hardest workers on court, he is also among the season leaders in digs, with 35. The leader in digs: Max, of course, with 58. The team total is 210. Max also leads in kills, with 109. The next best player in that category has only 53, and the team has a total of 275. As well as these two are doing, the team is not all that successful. The Sunday loss dropped their season record to just two wins and six losses.
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Fourth Place For Laura
(11 February 2001) - The Albright College indoor track team - Pennsylvania - participated in the Widener Invitational on Saturday, February 10th. Twelve athletes finished in the top five.
Freshman Laura Jean of St. Lucia was fourth in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.81 and finished sixth in the 200 meter with a time of 28.1; Laura has been living in the US for several years, but the eighteen-year-old has indicated that she is more than willing to run for St. Lucia.
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