He was a little nervous, as there was one restart because of a starting block malfunction, and then Jeffersontown’s Demytrius Gip was disqualified for a false start.
“That really didn’t bother me at all. I was already nervous,” Burrus said. “I was meditating before the race and trying to visualize how everything would go. I knew I could do it.
“If I could run the race over, I wouldn’t do anything different. This means everything in the world to me, and just about everything went right that could have gone right. But I have to remember that without God not of this would have been possible. My faith in God helped me a lot.
“It’s still hard to explain how everything went so well. I just felt like my whole race was different.”
Hayes was inside Burrus, and that made it impossible for him to know exactly where his top competitor was until he turned into the final 100 meters. Then he knew he was clearly in front.
“Last year if he had been outside of me, it might have distracted me. But I am a more mature runner. I know just to go out and run my best and see what happens like I did today,” he said.
He also combined with Russell Mays, Tre Dunn and James Johnson to place third in the 800-meter relay in 1:30.91. Central won in 1:30.27, and Louisville Christian was next in 1:30.67.
“We ran well. It was really a competitive race (won by Paducah Tilghman). When you get this far, you have to be fast and little things can make a big difference,” Mays said. “My handoff to Isaiah was not as good as usual, but everything is a little different on a college track like this (at the University of Louisville). You have to adjust.
“We really wanted to win, but third is not bad at all. We probably had the most competition in Class AA of any class in the state. There are a lot of good runners in Class AA and we still had to run well just to get third.”
The same team ran fifth in the 1,600 relay with a team of 3:27.95.
The Titans also got sixth-place performances from Johnson, a freshman, in the long jump (20 feet, 11 3/4 inches) and Ellis in the 100 dash (11.29).
