Panther baseball hold their own destiny in their hands.
On Spring Break week, Jared Greenwood’s team played three games in three days, including a non-conference game with North Buncombe and two Mountain Seven meetings with Pisgah. In avenging a late-inning Game 1 comeback to split with the Black Bears, Franklin tied North Henderson for second in the conference at 3-3, setting up a critical series with the Knights this week.
On Tuesday, April 5, Franklin welcomed Pisgah to McConnell Field for the rivals’ first meeting of the year. Entering the game 6-4 overall but 0-2 in the Mountain Seven, the Black Bears’ place in the standings was misleading, illustrating the conference’s strength this year from top to bottom.
Pisgah wasted little time getting on the board, turning a walk, a single and two fielder’s choice plays into a first-inning run. Franklin answered quickly in the bottom of the inning, getting walks from sophomore center fielder Tyler “T-Will” Williams and junior shortstop Ian Knepp to put two men on. Junior second baseman Malachi Hayes brought Williams home with a single to make it 1-1.
The game grew quiet for the next several frames, as junior pitcher/third baseman Jayden “Knuckles” Rogers held Pisgah scoreless, aided by excellent defense from Knepp and senior designated hitter/right fielder Caleb Cloer.
In the bottom of the fifth, senior catcher Davis Anders sparked the Panther offense, smacking a first-pitch standup triple to bring Hayes to the plate with one out. After Pisgah hit Hayes with a pitch, a passed ball brought Anders home to put Franklin up 2-1. Hayes came home on a Cloer single moments later to make it 3-1.
Still up by two, disaster struck Franklin in the seventh, as a single, a walk, two wild pitches and a passed ball brought the lead runner home to cut Pisgah’s deficit to 3-2. A double brought the second runner home on the next at-bat. Minutes later, the Black Bears regained the lead with a bases-loaded walk. The Panthers couldn’t answer in the bottom of the inning and fell in a 4-3 heartbreaker.
Rogers looked sharp throughout the game on the mound, tossing five innings of four-hit, one-run, nine-strikeout ball. Cloer went 2 for 3 with and RBI at the plate, while freshman outfielder Addix Sutton went 1 for 3 with a double.
The next evening, Franklin returned to McConnell Field for a game with North Buncombe.
For the second straight night, Franklin found themselves in an early hole, as North Buncombe turned two singles, a walk and a sac fly into a run in the bottom of the first. On the next at-bat, junior pitcher Abram Apel issued another walk to again load the bases but escaped the jam with a fly ball out and a 3-2 strikeout to retire the side.
For the second straight night, Franklin answered in the bottom of the first, getting a two-out double to deep left center from Anders. After Hayes reached first on an error, Cloer completed the two-out rally with a one-run single.
In the top of the second, Panther fans received a scare when Apel seemed to hyperextend his back, drawing junior Clint Cabe to the mound in emergency relief. Cabe held the Black Hawks scoreless through the next few innings, getting a long running catch in left from Sutton in the third and tossing a 1-2-3 top of the fourth.
Cloer sparked Franklin’s offense again in the bottom of the inning, driving a leadoff single into deep left center. Still tied 1-1, the Panthers played textbook A-B-C baseball, getting a stolen base from Cloer, a sac bunt from Rogers, and a sac fly from junior first baseman Jaxon Hursey to bring Cloer home.
In the bottom of the fifth, Hayes found more two-out magic, sneaking a line drive just inside the first base line for a triple. The junior came home on a Cloer double moments later to make it 3-1. Franklin authored yet another two-out rally in the bottom of the sixth, getting a walk and a stolen base from Sutton and an RBI double from Williams.
North Buncombe refused to go quietly in the top of the seventh, turning a single and two hit batsmen into a two-out rally of their own. With the bases loaded, Hayes took the mound in a high-pressure situation, giving up an RBI single but retiring the final batter for a 4-2 victory.
Franklin’s pitchers looked sharp once again throughout the contest, led by five innings of one-run, five strikeout ball from Cabe. Cloer led the Panthers again at the plate, going 3 for 3 with a double, two RBIs, a run scored and two stolen bases. The senior would end the week with the second-best batting average in the conference, slashing .520 with 13 hits including three doubles in 25 at-bats.
“I think we played really good as a team,” said Anders after the game. “Our defense played really good, Clint pitched really good, and it all just combined to help us get the win.”
The next evening, the team traveled to Canton for an opportunity at revenge on Pisgah. There, the early innings were fairly quiet, with the game still tied 1-1 after five. In the bottom of the sixth, a three-run frame gave the Bears a commanding lead, but an even bigger top of the seventh turned the tables back toward Franklin.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know we had that in us, but it was really good to see,” said Greenwood of his team’s five-run frame, which, combined with a scoreless bottom of the inning on the mound from Knepp, gave Franklin an improbable 6-4 victory. “I was hoping it was in there, and we’ve been talking quite a bit this week about cheering for each other – sincerely cheering for my teammates, my buddies. We didn’t do that for the first part of the game, but [the final inning] was something pretty special, because everybody was. ... Next thing you know, we get a couple guys on, get a couple big hits, and it just kept going and kept going and kept going [until] we put up a five-spot.”
After a big seventh inning gave the Black Bears a win Tuesday, Franklin returned the favor emphatically in the rematch. On the mound, Josiah Hursey was charged with all four Pisgah runs, but racked up 11 strikeouts in his five and one-third innings. The junior ended the week with the conference’s lowest Earned Runs Average at 0.28, having allowed just one earned run in 25 innings. In addition to a scoreless inning on the mound, Knepp also led the Panthers at the plate, going 3 for 4 with three RBIs and a double.
“Joe pitched great again. He deserved the win, but the way baseball is, he didn’t get the win,” said Greenwood, referring to the rule that starting pitchers can only be credited with a win when their team takes the lead before his reliever enters the game. “Joe carried us for five innings while we were not playing well, and Malachi came in and got us out of the sixth. Then we had that big inning, and then Ian stepped up and got three big outs to close the game in the bottom of the seventh. … a big, big win for Panther baseball, and I think that’s gonna get us back where we need to be moving forward this last half of the season.”