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Brode’s brawn breaks records
By JON MOFFETT
Poland
Dustin Brode entered the Poland Invitational with three discuses in his duffle bag. But he left with a little bit more hardware.
Brode was named the field MVP at the 15th Annual Poland Invitational at the high school Saturday. Brode was given the award for breaking two meet records, one for each event he entered.
“That’s pretty much what I’m going for,” Brode said with a smile.
Brode, 18, shattered the discus record of 189-2 by almost 10 feet. He threw a whopping 198-6 in the finals. He said having tough competition is what brought out the best in him.
“Discus is nice because I have [Fitch’s] George Thomas and [McDonald’s] Mathias Tayala to push me, and they’re both up there,” he said. “But I was pretty much alone in the shot, it was just me against the record, and it didn’t have a chance to redeem itself.”
The record, it turns out, was no match for Brode.
The 60-2 mark set by Springfield’s Nick Panezich in 2005 fell faster than the iron ball he hurled. Brode tossed his shot 67-10. The next place, that of LaBrae’s Steve Woodyard, was 51-4. Tayala also broke the then-record with a discus toss of 193-1.
Despite personal success, Brode’s Canfield team finished third in the boys meet with 51 points, and was a half-point behind Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy. Warren Harding won the meet with 110 points.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary won the meet on the girls side with 91 points. The Irish were followed by Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (74) and Fitch (64.5).
Warren Harding senior Marvin Logan had two individual first-place finishes, and added another on a relay team. His 4x400 relay also finished third. Logan, 17, won the boys 110- and 300-meter hurdles. He, along with Andrew Zitnik, Marteze Roper and DeAver Williamson, took first place in the 4x200 relay.
Logan, who was battling an illness, said he hopes to win the state title in the both hurdle events.
“I think I’ve overcome everybody’s expectations of me as a hurdler period,” he said. “I’ve improved on the 110-meter hurdles, and slowly but surely my 300-meter hurdling is coming along. I’m a lot faster, and my technique is better this year.”
Teammate and classmate Roper, 17, also had individual success. He won the 800-meter dash to earn his team 10 points. Though he was happy with his time (1:57.96) he was hoping to do better.
“I thought the race was OK,” he said. “I wanted to a better time. I wanted to go 1:55, because every race I’ve gotten better and last time I ran a 1:56.”
On the girls side, Fitch junior Jen Shiley won the 300-meter hurdles, and anchored two relay teams to third- and fourth-place finishes.
Shiley, 17, said her best race is the 100-meter hurdles. But she didn’t even enter that race, because she wanted to focus on the 300-meter hurdles – a race she just started to run this year.
“It hurt, but I just went out and got it. That’s all you can pretty much do,” she said. “Like the 100-meter is so fast, and this race you kind of build up gradually. But I like it; it’s fun.”
Shiley said her favorite race is the 400-meter dash, but hopes to make it to the state championship meet any way she can.
Earning the Iron Bulldog awards, for scoring the most individual points at the meet, were Zitnik (25 points) and Chaney’s Shatasia Walker (23). Running MVPs were Zitnik and Lakeview’s Lauren Schattinger.