Kentwood track and field coach Steve Roche knew he had a rarity on his hands when freshman Alyx Toeaina first stepped onto the oval earlier this spring.<\/p>\n
Roche is quickly learning, however, how rare Toeaina is.<\/p>\n
The Kentwood youngster served up an eye-opening performance last week in a loss to Kent-Meridian, sweeping the throwing events of discus, shot put and javelin.<\/p>\n
Toeaina\u2019s 127-foot-11-inch toss in the discus was the eighth-best mark in the state this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the throws, very rarely do you see this,\u201d Roche said. \u201cIt usually takes a couple of years for kids to build up their strength. Alyx just came in and lit the world on fire. We knew her marks before from middle school, but we just didn\u2019t know she\u2019d make the transition (to high school) this well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Success might be the understatement of the year.<\/p>\n
Toeaina ranks among the state\u2019s top 10 in the shot put and the discus. More telling of exactly how good she has been takes only a look at the state leaderboard. She\u2019s the only freshman in the state among the top 10 in either event.<\/p>\n
Against K-M, Toeaina won the javelin with a throw of 94-2, which remains off the pace of a state top 10. Her heave in the shot put (37-8.50) was slightly off her season best of 39-2, which currently ranks eighth in the state.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a freshman.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s just an athlete … so powerful,\u201d Roche said. \u201cAn amazing kid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kentwood track and field coach Steve Roche knew he had a rarity on his hands when freshman Alyx Toeaina first stepped onto the oval earlier this spring. Roche is quickly learning, however, how rare Toeaina is. The Kentwood youngster served up an eye-opening performance last week in a loss to Kent-Meridian, sweeping the throwing events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16810"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}