Four Blazers named All-Americans at Junior Olympics

Under the blazing Texas sun, a group of Baldwin teenagers, appropriately named the Baldwin Blazers, ran and jumped their way through stiff competition at the USA Track & Field Junior Olympics last week.

The Blazers had 18 athletes qualify for various events, but when four of them traveled back to New York last Sunday, they did so with a fancy title — All-American.

Germine Museau, Crystal Grierson, Chinira Lovick, and Pollyanna Velasco, who make up the Blazers’ 3,200-meter relay team in the 17-18 women’s division, finished in fourth place in the event by completing the race in nine minutes and 38 seconds. By finishing in the top-eight, the girls were deemed All-American, and have the hats and medals to prove it.

The group of Blazers was seeded third coming into the Junior Olympics based on their qualifying time earlier this summer. Head coach Chandel Brown knew they would run strong, but added that it’s tough to predict the outcome of a relay event. When she watched them cross the finish line in fourth, she was “ecstatic.”

“When you come down here and you have kids from all over the country…to know that they’re fourth overall is a good feeling,” Brown said.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Grierson, 18, who ran the quickest time of the four Baldwin girls in the relay — two minutes and 19 seconds. “Everyone wants to wear our ‘All-American’ hats.” Lovick, 17, said the team’s goal was to beat its qualifying time, which it did by 13 seconds.

But Lovick wasn’t satisfied with one All-American finish. She also placed sixth in the 1,500-meter finals last Sunday with a time of four minutes and 46 seconds — a personal best.