News

Edwin Allen wins

By WANDEKA GAYLE, Staff Reporter

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Kamone Salmon, Oshane Reid, Jerome Shepherd and Jerdaine Sterling (captain), members of the Edwin Allen Technical High School team following their victory over Holy Childhood. - Carlington Wilmot

FOLLOWING A LOW-scoring match which ended with Edwin Allen defeating Holy Childhood High by 19 points to three, coaches and players alike blamed everything but themselves for the low scores as the second round of matches continued in this year's installment of TVJ's Schools Challenge Quiz Competition. The match was aired last night on Television Jamaica.

In what was the sixth match in the round, coaches and team members blamed unfamiliar questions for their poor performance. "Those questions were so way out," complained Holy Childhood's coach, Elaine Fletcher after the match, as the members of her team stood outside, the bitterness of the defeat clouding their faces. Several refused to comment on the match.

Strange questions

Though Edwin Allen won, their coach, Oniel Brown, was in total agreement with Fletcher. "Most of the questions were quite strange," he said. "But they (his team) did have composure."

At the end of Section One, in which questions are posed to teams alternately,both schools were tied on four points. Holy Childhood answered correctly questions in Chemistry, Art and Cinema while Edwin Allen had correct answers for Biology, Sports and Names of Authors. However, at the end of Section Two in which teams get alternate 60-second periods to answer as many questions as possible, Edwin Allen upped their score by 11 while their opponents could only manage three points. The scores then read Edwin Allen ,14, Holy Childhood, 7.

Those seven points that Holy Childhood had managed up till then were hard to keep when the buzzer round began. Edwin Allen, though, did little better managing just five additional points to the tally by the time the match ended.

The apprehension of Holy Childhood supporters was palpable when the school's point tally dipped to just one following three incorrect answers. In the final moments of play they managed to add two. It was the lowest point output for a school in this year's competition beating the five points managed by Tivoli Gardens High during the first round of competition.

Needless to say that if Edwin Allen seek to advance further they will have to du much better against their next opponents.

(Read tomorrow's STAR for the report on the match between Manchester High and St. Elizabeth Technical High).