A plethora of events of note to discuss today, from high school through college to professional sports and later to WW II history, so buckle up and let’s get rolling!
State softball titles were claimed over the weekend in Akron at Firestone Stadium, with the Lady Patriots of Tri-Village winning the D-VI crown and Kenton Ridge’s Lady Cougars claiming the D-IV trophy. Dodging raindrops, T-V dominated Sugarcreek Garaway 6-0 in completing a remarkable 30-0 season record and bringing elation to the streets of New Madison as well as those of Palestine and Hollansburg. Congratulations to the Lady Pats as they rolled across Ohio on their way to a perfect record!!
Meanwhile, baseball reaches the state semifinals stage in all seven divisions this coming weekend at Canal Park in Akron. Area schools participating include Springboro in D-I, Hamilton Badin and Wapakoneta in D-III, perennial power Coldwater in D-V, and Russia and Minster facing off in a D-VII clash. If you haven’t seen a high school game recently, you would be impressed by the skill levels shown by these young men; good luck to all!!
What a weekend of track and field state championships held at Jesse Owens Stadium in Columbus the past few days! There’s only room to list area teams and individuals who were honored with state crowns; for complete results, as always, go to the Ohio Mile/split.com or OHSAA websites.
In D-III, Minster’s girls captured the 4×800 relay title while Elisabeth Waltz of Troy Christian won the high jump. Anna Roessner of Fort Recovery was the state champ in the 100-meter dash, with Coldwater’s girls proving the best in the 4×400 relay. Cade Shellhaas of Ansonia won the boys’ pole vault with an impressive height of 16’6”, and Marion Local’s relay team won the boys’ 4×400.
A special mention goes out to Isabella Zahn of Coldwater, who claimed individual titles in the long jump, 200 and 400-meter dashes, and ran the anchor leg on the aforementioned 4×400 relay team. In so doing, she and her other teammates brought the D-III team state championship home to Mercer County! Other top ten girls’ team finishers were Fort Loramie in seventh place, Fort Recovery in eighth place, and Minster in ninth place. On the boy’s side, St. Henry was fourth, Marion Local sixth, and Ansonia ninth.
In D-II, Oakwood’s girls finished second overall as a team, with the 4×800 relay team winning a state title. Brookville’s Coy Hyre had another day to remember, the senior besting his own D-II state record with a 10.38 100; winning the 200 in a new state meet record 20.99; anchoring the Blue Devil 4×200 team to another new state meet record; and finally anchoring the 4×400 relay team to a second-place finish as he and his teammates claimed a state championship, holding off Cleveland Glenville by a scant two points. Congratulations to Coy Hyre and the Brookville Blue Devils!!
D-I action saw Sidney’s Garrett Guinther clear 17’0” in winning the pole vault while Vandalia Butler’s Jordan Gross captured the 200-meter dash. Gross later came back to capture another state crown with teammates as they took the 4×400 relay, scoring enough points to enable the Aviators to claim a third-place overall team finish in the big school division!
Let’s move to a major story that will have far-reaching implications for Division One college sports as we’ve known them. By virtue of a legal ruling on the validity of an agreement reached by the NCAA and participating schools at the major college level, colleges now can pay their athletes directly. The NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 BILLION over the next ten years in back damages to D-I athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through the present day.
An annual cap has been set at $20.5 million per school in 2025-2026 and will increase each of the next ten years. Payments will be in addition to any scholarships and any other benefits already given to athletes at the top levels. I’m not sure how those funds will be distributed at a school like THE and other top-tier football schools, as most of them were rumored to have player “payrolls” close to that level last season.
And you thought “Tattoo-gate” was bad during the end of the Jim Tressel era at THE!! Evidently, the rich will get richer as big revenues from television, gate receipts, and marketing have changed the basic dynamics and philosophy of college and amateur sports in the U.S.
Moving into professional sports, quick, can you name the team with the best winning percentage in Major League Baseball as of June 8th?
How about the improbable string of comeback wins by the Indiana Pacers in this year’s NBA Playoffs? In four straight series, they have mounted almost impossible comebacks inside the final minute to claim victory, the latest being the last-second shot by Tyrese Haliburton giving the Pacers their only lead of the night with 0.3 seconds remaining to silence the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Sooner State. Tune in to see if the magic continues for Rick Carlisle’s crew Sunday night in Game Two.
Similar situations are developing in the NHL as the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup. The Oilers claimed a come-from-behind home ice win 4-3 in Game One, while the visitors from Florida capped the Oilers’ 5-4 victory in double overtime to win Game Two and return south all even. Those of us in the Eastern Time Zone don’t know what we’re missing in both series when we turn off the television thinking games are in hand. Pass the No-Doz!!!
The Tigers of Detroit lead the majors in winning percentage to date, the same group that has been a bottom-dweller for many years in the AL Central. Productive draft classes, along with shrewd trades and free agent acquisitions, have brought pride back to long-suffering Tiger fans. As a bonus question, who was the last manager to lead Detroit to a World Series title? The one and only Sparky Anderson led the Tigers to the 1984 crown by defeating the San Diego Padres!
Finally, this interesting item from our friends at the Garst Museum and the Early Bird newspaper. The SS “Annie Oakley” was a Liberty-Class merchant ship designed to carry supplies in World War II to Allied Forces fighting in Europe and was commissioned on September 12th of 1943, in Los Angeles. The 441’ vessel was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat on April 9th of 1945, shortly before the cessation of hostilities in the European Theater of Operations. There was no information on any loss of life among the 41 crew members serving at the time.
An interesting article woven into the story of “Little Miss Sure Shot” that not many West Central Ohioans are aware of today. Have a great week!!
