An enterprising unbeaten 110 from Windies batsman Jermaine Blackwood highlighted a day of mixed fortunes for the Jamaica Scorpions as they ended on 282 for 6 against the Guyana Harpy Eagles in the West Indies Championship, at the Diego Martin Sports Complex, on Wednesday.

After winning the toss and choosing to bat, the Scorpion's batting line-up was rocked early on when Leroy Lugg was sent back to the pavilion, with just 17 runs on the board.  Lugg was caught by Gudakesh Motie off the bowling of Demetri Cameron.  Blackwood and John Campbell then went about repairing the damage and put on a 50-run partnership for the second wicket, but that was brought to an end when Campbell was trapped lbw by Kevin Sinclair.

Blackwood would, however, continue to anchor the innings putting on another 30 with Paul Palmer Jr after Oraine Williams also fell victim to Sinclair when he was trapped lbw without scoring.  Palmer himself became one of two victims on the day for Motie after being gobbled up by Cameron.

Alwyn Williams then joined the set Blackwood, at the crease, and the two saw the score to over 200 with Williams adding 51 before being dismissed by Motie.

Overall, Motie ended with figures of 2 for 39, while Sinclair ended with 2 for 74.  At the close of play, Blackwood stood unbeaten on 110 off 251 balls and he was partnered by Aldane Thomas who notched 35 off 40 deliveries.

The St Lucia Athletics Association has selected an 18-member squad to represent the island at the Friendship Games scheduled to get underway on Saturday, May 28, at the Stade Territorial Louis Achille, in Fort de France, Martinique.

Eleven islands are expected to participate at the Games including French Guiana, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Sint Maarten, Guadeloupe and Haiti as well as, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, and host country Martinique.

The Boys U20 team comprises Kadeem Larcher, Cagini Pilgrim, Noel Tribune, Sirgio Mc. Kenzie, Ken Smith and Kenrick James while Mya Hippolyte, Sandrina Popo, Kayla Charles, Joy Edward and Hadassah Papius make up the U20 Girls.

Denzel Phillip, Levern Jn. Baptiste, and Milan Mitchell comprise the U17 Boys.

Naya Jules, Paige Anderson, Sierratina Hilaire and Kirsheema Ince make up the U20 Girls.

Jamaican athletes Salcia Slack and Samantha Elliott are among eight former NCAA Division II champion athletes who are to be inducted into the USTFCCCA NCAA Division II Hall of Fame Class of 2022, it was announced on Wednesday.

Slack represented New Mexico Highlands University as a multi-eventer while Elliott was a standout at Johnson C Smith University where she thrived under the tutelage of Coach Lennox Graham.

Slack is the first athlete from New Mexico Highlands inducted into the USTFCCCA NCAA DII Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame.

“I am very thankful for this induction. I know I have worked hard. I cried, I suffered in many ways but I never gave up, no matter what, so I am elated for this,” Slack, now a member of the USA military, told Sportsmax.TV shortly after the Class of 2022 announcement was made on Wednesday.

According to the USTFCCCA, Slack left her mark in a big way at the 2015 NCAA DII Outdoor Championships. Over the span of three days in Allendale, Michigan, she won the heptathlon for the second year in a row, took runner-up honours in both the 100- and 400-meter hurdles, finished sixth in the open long jump and helped New Mexico Highlands take fourth in the 4×400 relay, amassing 30.25 points.

If Slack competed alone, she would have finished seventh in the team standings. That wasn’t the case, though: Slack led the Cowgirls to their first top-4 finish at the Outdoor Championships in program history (NMHU also took third indoors thanks to another sterling effort by Slack.

“I decided that I wanted to take on all these events and I was determined to make the finals in all of them, she recalled.

“The event that stood out for me was running the 400m hurdles for the first time and finishing second.”

She also had bitter-sweet memories of competing indoors in 2014.

“The 2014 Indoor Championships was one of my best and scariest. I got sick that very morning and was told that I wasn’t able to compete and I begged the medics to give me the chance and they did. I went out there to do me and I exceeded what my body was telling me I could do.”’

In addition to 16 total All-America honours, multitudes of conference titles and multiple National and Regional Athlete of the Year laurels from the USTFCCCA, Slack’s name dots the NCAA DII record book. Slack stands alone at the top of the heptathlon all-time chart as the only athlete to amass more than 6000 points (6141, to be exact) and also holds the third-best total (5833); she is the No. 3 performer in the pentathlon at 4181 points – barely missing the NCAA DII record of 4193 points – and owns the No. 4 (4193), No. 5 (4172) and No. 6 (4149) all-time performances.

Elliott was simply outstanding for Johnson C Smith.

In three-straight All-Academic years at Johnson C. Smith, Elliott not only earned 17 NCAA Division II All-America awards, but also a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems.

On the track, Elliott was a versatile performer on Golden Bulls teams that finished runner-up three times at the NCAA Division II Track & Field Championships: indoors and outdoors in 2013; outdoors in 2014.

 She ran sprints and relays, but her speciality was the hurdles – she was top-three in both the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles all three years at the DII Outdoor, winning the 400h twice (2013 and 2014) and 100H once (2014, with a lifetime best of 13.04).

Her 2013 winning time of 56.38 in the 400 hurdles was a meet record and still rates No. 3 all-time among DII athletes.

On relays, Elliott was a national champion two more times, including anchoring the 2013 JCSU 4×100 unit that set the still-standing meet record of 44.05. Her collegiate career included two Penn Relays titles in the 400H and five individual CIAA titles (three in the 100H and two in the 400H).

Elliott is the fourth athlete from Johnson C. Smith to be inducted into the NCAA Division II Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame.

Jamaica international Michael Hector will once again be on the hunt for a new club come the end of the next month when he is expected to leave recently promoted Fulham.

The 29-year-old defender has been with the club since 2019 and was a part of the successful promotion-chasing team in the 2020 season.   The Cottagers will once again be heading back to the topflight after winning the league championship a few weeks ago.

This time around, however, the player found playing time hard to come by and accumulated just seven starts in all competitions for the Cottagers last season.  In preparing for life in the top flight again the club recently announced that it would part ways with as many as 14 players with the Jamaican international among them.

Hector has enjoyed a nomadic experience in the English Leagues to date having played for some 18 clubs, including Reading (twice) and Hull City.  For Jamaica, he has made 35 appearances, last representing the team in July of last year.

Jamaican shot-putter Danniel Thomas-Dodd was in scintillating form to win at the 2022 USATF Throws Festival in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday.

The 2019 World Championship silver medallist produced a season’s best 19.53m to win, her farthest throw since her 19.55 personal best and national record done in 2019, to win gold at the Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru.

The throw was one of three in Thomas-Dodd’s series to eclipse 19m. Canada’s Sara Mitton was second with 19.47m while the USA’s Jessica Ramsey was third with 19.38m.

“It feels good to be honest. I was struggling a lot with my confidence because I was injured all of last season and I’m finally in a place where I can say I feel like the old Danniel,” she said in an interview after the event.

“I just want to bring this momentum into the World Championships,” she added.

Jamaica’s Ralford Mullings threw 63.75m for third in the Men’s discus behind the American pair of Sam Mattis (68.69m) and Andrew Evans (66.74m).

Former Trinidad and Tobago striker Stern John has been appointed head coach of the St Lucia Senior Football team. The St Lucia Football Association confirmed the appointment on Sunday.

West Indies bowling coach Roddy Estwick believes West Indies will miss middle order batsman Shimron Hetmyer during their upcoming tour of the Netherlands and India but hopes the player will make himself available for future tours.

The West Indies will take on the Netherlands in three ODIs on May 31, June 2 and 4. The team will then travel to Pakistan for three more ODIs on June 8, 10 and 12.

Estwick was speaking at a media conference late last week when he addressed the Hetmyer situation. Hetmyer recently withdrew from Rajasthan Royals in the IPL to travel back to Guyana for the birth of his first child.

Mere days later, he returned to the Royals which will play the Gujarat Titans on Tuesday, May 24 in the first IPL qualifier. However, the explosive Guyanese batsman has not made himself unavailable for the West Indies tours.

Estwick said the West Indies will miss his talents.

"If someone like Hetmyer's not playing, you're obviously going to miss his talent. He's having an outstanding season for Rajasthan Royals. He's doing very, very well. He's playing well,” Estwick said.

“He will be missed, but at the end of the day, he's not there. He's asked not to be selected for this tour so we have to get on without him and we hope that he will make himself available for future tours."

Notwithstanding Hetmyer’s absence, Estwick said he expects the West Indies to win the three ODI series against the Netherlands.

"Our expectation is to win all three ODIs [in the Netherlands] but it's not going to be easy," Estwick said. "Remember, a lot of the players won't have played in conditions like the ones we'll encounter in the Netherlands.

"It's about how quickly we adjust to conditions. We've only got a couple of days' practice before we go into the first ODI so it's all about adjusting and getting used to the conditions and then executing plans as well as possible."

Following an impressive season-best run over 400m at the second JAAA/SDF Jubilee Saturday night, Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Candice McLeod revealed that she has been working on a new race plan that she believes could make even faster than she was in 2021.

Inside the National Stadium in Kingston, the well-chiselled McLeod exploded at the 250m mark and pulled away from the field to win handsomely in 50.58. In her devastating wake were the Sprintec pair of Tiffany James and Ashley Williams, who ran 52.10 and 53.40 for second and third, respectively.

McLeod’s winning time was the third-fastest by a Jamaican woman behind Charokee Young (49.87) and Stacey-Ann Williams (50.21).

Surprisingly, she was pleased but not overly impressed with the performance.

 “I feel okay but I feel like I have a little more (to give). I feel like I was just working on what we have been working on in training,” she said following the victory.

The new race plan that she and coach Fitz Coleman has been putting together is intended to take her to the next level because despite running a massive personal best of 49.51 at the Olympics last summer, McLeod feels as if she needs to suffer to get the best out of her body.

“Honestly, even when I ran 49.5, I never felt like I gave it my all. I didn’t feel the leg pain, the headaches and whatever so I feel like I didn’t do enough,” she explained.

“I have always wanted to feel at my maximum regardless of what it feels like. I want to feel like I am dying so I felt like I needed to switch it up a bit to get that dying feeling. Today wasn’t bad, it still wasn’t there but it’s getting there.”

That plan has been coming together since the outdoor season began earlier this year when she opened with 51.78 at the MVP Velocity Fest meet in Kingston on April 2 before flying off to Bermuda where in extremely windy conditions on April 9, she clocked a solid 51.57. She was second in both races to the 2019 World Championship 400m bronze medallist Shericka Jackson.

The University of the West Indies accounting graduate followed up on April 23 with what was then a season-best 51.20 in Kingston.

However, just over a week ago, on May 13, the 25-year-old Olympic finalist ran her worst race of the season clocking 52.37 in a fifth place finish at the Doha Diamond League meeting. Despite the poor showing, McLeod said that race was important to her plans for this season even if things didn’t work out as planned.

“I needed Doha because after the 51.2 here, I needed to see if I could get it (the race plan) in play but, unfortunately, I didn’t do what I wanted to, so I came today even though it wasn’t part of the schedule to run,” she said while explaining what went wrong in Doha.

“It was the wind. It was bad execution by me too. Bad judgement of the wind and as for recovery, I am not too keen or known to recover well after travel but I am working on that. It takes time.”

She expressed confidence that most, if not everything, will fall into place by the time Jamaica’s National Championships roll around in late June when she believes a new lifetime best is probable as she heads into the World Championships in Oregon just over two weeks later.

“With practise comes improvement,” she said. “Everybody wants to be better than they were before so if I get that (below 49.51) then, wow. If I get 49.5, then wow again, but I am working towards just bettering myself,” said McLeod who is relishing the prospect of going up against the best that Jamaica has to offer, namely Young, Williams and defending national champion, Stephenie-Ann McPherson.

“I am very confident in my preparation, my conditioning and everything. I love competition. It’s all fun for me because I love what I do, so regardless, competition or not, I am here for it,” she said.

Los Angeles FC momentarily moved to the top of the Western Conference in the MLS on Saturday, claiming a 2-0 victory over Columbus Crew.

Goals in the second half from Carlos Vela and Jose Cifuentes handed LAFC the three points, to put them three points clear of Austin FC, who have a game in hand.

James Igbekeme missed from close range for the Crew in the third minute and with the majority of possession, failed to create anything of substance from that point.

LAFC were able to punish them in transition through Vela in the 62nd minute, darting in behind the defensive line before finishing past Eloy Room.

Cifuentes doubled the margin in the 73rd minute, left with a relatively simple finish after Cristian Arango claimed the ball just outside the penalty area in a comical loss of possession from a Crew goal kick.

The win moves LAFC to 26 points from 13 games but elsewhere in the Western Conference, Nashville SC were unable to move to fourth, twice letting the lead slip in a 2-2 draw with Atlanta United.

In the Eastern Conference, DC United and Toronto FC also played out a 2-2 draw, while Tommy McNamara's spectacular finish in the 89th minute handed the New England Revolution a 3-2 win over Cincinnati.

Jamaica 100m sprinter Oblique Seville ran the second-fastest time recorded over the distance this season after clocking 9.86 to take the event at the JAAA/SDF Jubilee Series.

Seville got away well before pulling away from the field to record a massive new personal best, shattering his previous mark of 10.00.  Conroy Jones took the second spot behind Seville in 10.14 seconds, with Emmanuel Archibald taking third in 10.20.

In the women’s equivalent, Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah dominated the field to take first place in 10.94.  Thompson-Herah pulled away down the stretch to finish well clear of second-place Remona Burchell who was next in 11.31 and Jodean Williams who was third in 11.40.

Reigning Olympic 110m hurdles champion Hansle Parchment ran a world-leading 13.09 to win at the Birmingham Diamond League, at the Alexander Stadium, in London on Saturday.

Parchment finished ahead of countryman and 2016 Olympic champion Omar McLeod who ran a season’s best 13.17 for second, while Spain’s Asier Martinez was third in 13.22.

Reigning Olympic bronze medallist in the Women’s 100m Shericka Jackson narrowly finished second in the Women’s blue-ribband event, running 11.12 to finish behind British 2019 200m World champion Dina Asher-Smith (11.11). Asher-Smith’s countrywoman Daryll Neita was third in 11.14.

Olympic 800m finalist Natoya Goule was third in the Women’s 800m in 2:00.13 behind Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain (1:58.63) and Renelle Lamote of France (1:59.53).

Leeward Islands Hurricanes spinner Rahkeem Cornwall produced a solid spell of his own to end the T&T Red Force resistance and secure a 187-run win in the West Indies Championship at the Diego Martin Complex.

The Red Force began the day behind the 8 ball, facing a deficit of 316 runs and with six wickets already lost.  Yannic Cariah, who resume the day on 37, however, did his best to keep T&T in the contest eventually going on to score a gritty 100 from 180 balls.

His overnight partner Bryan Charles only managed to add 16 to his total before being Cornwall’s first victim, caught by Amir Jangoo.

Anderson Phillip’s stay at the crease lasted just five deliveries as he was dismissed for 4, undone lbw by Hayden Walsh Jr.  Jayden Seales partnered with Cariah to put on 86 for the 9^th wicket but Cornwall ended the partnership when he accounted for the valuable wicket of Cariah who was caught by Kieron Powell.  The innings was brought to an end when Seales was dismissed on 33 by Sheeno Berridge.  Overall Cornwall ended with second-innings figures of 4 for 50.