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Saturday, May 16, 2009

Best Birthday Ever

This week I got to work at our City Championships on Tuesday (junior high), Wednesday and Friday (high school). I always do announcing, which is the absolute best job to have at a track meet. I can't believe they pay me to do this.

The high school meet's team battles were not close, but the individual event competitions at times were fantastic. We had six meet records broken, two of which dated from the 1970s. Cody Riffle (Toledo St. John's Jesuit) took out those old marks with 61' 3 1/2" in the shot and 170' 6" in the discus.

Moise Frisch (Toledo Whitmer), a Haitian adopted by a locally famous-for-15-minutes family, won a pair of tough distance battles with Kevin Yarnell (Toledo St. John's). In the 1600, the two battled hammer-and-tongs for nearly the entire last lap before Frisch pulled away to win by just under a second in 4:15.35. Their rematch in the 800 saw Yarnell take it out in 56.5 while Frisch patiently waited and ran him down in the last 200, winning 1:54.68 to 1:55.16. Frisch has not signed a letter of intent -- Kentucky is interested but has made no offer yet -- and whoever does get him is going to steal a stud. Mark my words, you will see him scoring at the NCAA within three years.

Neither of these was the real highlight, though. Superstar Erik Kynard (Toledo Rogers) started off with a 110 hurdle win, then went over to the high jump and made only three attempts: 6'10", 7' 1", and 7' 3 1/2", all easy clearances. Long-time high jump official Don Standish, not one for hyperbole, swears Kynard made the last one by four inches. From where I was, I could definitely see good daylight between Kynard and the bar. He then quit to go and win the 300 hurdles.

And to top it off, my sister-in-law got me a case of Little Kings, and on Sunday I'll go watch the Big Ten Championships in Columbus.

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