Wright, who was sixth in the boys’ Class one event last year, bided his time throughout the event on this occasion, before producing a late burst in the stretch to win in a dazzling personal best 50.71s. He edged the Kingston College pair of Antonio Forbes (50.74s) and Shamari Jennings (50.83s).
Prior to that, Bennett proved too good for rivals in the boys’ Class two event, as he ran away an easy winner in 51.70s, ahead of Calabar’s Robert Miller (52.63s) and Taj-Oneil Gordon (52.35s) of Kingston College.
Meanwhile, in the girls’ Open event, Beckford, running from lane five, went out and a decent pace and basically covered the field on the backstretch before sprinting away from rivals off the curve to win in a brisk 56.70 seconds.
She led a one-two finish for the Frankfield-based Edwin Allen, as her teammate Natasha Fox (57.94s) was second, with Aaliyah Mullings (58.96s) of Hydel in third.
“The inspiration behind it is that I want my team to win and as you can see, I am the captain, so I have to come out here and lead by example,” Beckford said after the win.
Following those events, Edwin Allen surged to 184 points, 43 points ahead of reigning champions Hydel (141 points), while St Jago (81 points), Immaculate Conception (70.33 points) and Holmwood Technical (57 points), complete the top five.
On the boys’ side, Kingston College moved to 169 points, 36 points ahead of Jamaica College (133 points), with Calabar High (84 points), St Jago (74 points) and Excelsior (60 points) rounding out the top five heading into Saturday’s final day.
Hodge was first up, competing in the first heat alongside Caribbean counterpart Kishawna Niles from Barbados.
As expected, Hodge cruised to 11.45, the fastest time in the heats, to win ahead of Niles who will also be in the semifinals after running 11.63 in second.
Reid, Jamaica’s national junior 100m record holder, was up next in the third heat.
The former Hydel High standout, who represented her country in the Women’s 4x100m relay at the Paris Olympics recently, ran a comfortable 11.46 to win her heat.
Dominican Republic’s Liranyi Alonso (11.77) and Puerto Rico’s Frances Colon (11.83) also booked spots in the semi-finals.
On the Men’s side, Jamaica’s Gary Card and Deandre Daley secured safe passage through to the semifinals.
Card, who has a personal and season’s best of 10.07 which he did to defeat Daley at the JAAA National Junior Championships at the National Stadium in Kingston in June, eased to a time of 10.40 to win the fifth heat.
Daley, a 10.08 performer at his best, recovered from a stumble at the start of his race to cruise home in 10.37 to win heat six.
Bahamian Carlos Brown Jr (10.48) also made it through to the semis scheduled for later on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, Jamaica’s quartet of Demarco Bennett, Nastassia Fletcher, Marcinho Rose and Alliah Baker advanced to the final of the Mixed 4x400m relay with a time of 3:24.77 to finish second in their heat behind Germany who won in 3:24.10.
In the field, Jamaica’s Shaiquan Dunn threw 19.53m to advance to the final of the Men’s shot put.
In the triple jump, Jamaica’s Chavez Penn barely booked a spot in the final, jumping 15.32m to take the twelfth and final spot, finishing just two centimeters ahead of Colombia’s Santiago Theran.
Trinidad & Tobago's Janae De Gannes produced 6.03m to advance to the final of the women's long jump.
With both finalists on the cards, expectations were high that Jamaica would bring the curtains down on the opening day of the five-day championships with at least one medal, but it was not to be.
The quartet of Demarco Bennett, Shanniqua Williams, Marcinho Rose, and Alliah Baker entered the final with the fastest time, but struggled to keep pace with the early front runners and had to settle for fourth at the end.
They clocked a season’s best 3:22.74, behind the Australians, who won in a national record of 3:19.27. Poland (3:20.44) and China (3:21.27) were second and third.
Meanwhile, Dunn, contesting the shot put final, took his time to get going and, as such, was unable to get anywhere close to his personal best of 20.01. He placed ninth as he failed to register a mark on his first attempt, but later hit 18.92m on his third round effort and just failed to squeeze into the top eight to secure three additional throws.
Cuba’s Emmanuel Ramirez was 10th with a best throw of 18.42.
