Panther track and field are champions of the Mountain Seven Conference.
At the M7C Championship Meet at North Henderson May 2, the conference’s best athletes gathered to divvy up bragging rights for the outdoor season. In outscoring fellow 3A West power West Henderson for both men’s and women’s titles, Franklin picked up several new pieces of hardware ahead of the 3A West Regional.
“We felt like, going into it, that we had a chance to win it,” said men’s head coach Matt Harlfinger of the conference meet. “I ran a couple of, I don’t know if you’d call them simulation meets, virtual meets or whatever. I always had it coming down to about 10 points, but I always had us on the winning edge. Ten points is not a lot to win by – one mistake, one kid false starts or you drop a baton on a relay, you lose those 10 points, and now you’re even. The message that we’ve been sending going into every track meet is, if we just go and do what we’re capable of doing and take care of our business, focus on your task [and] just do what we’re supposed to do, we’re gonna be OK.”
Between West, the reigning Women’s Outdoor State Champions, and Franklin, the reigning Men’s Indoor State Champions and Women’s runners-up, Tuesday’s meet featured two legitimate 3A Outdoor state title contenders. While the Falcons have significantly more athletes on their roster, the Panthers were able to place highly in more events.
“At the state level, outdoor really comes down to top-end talent. At the conference level, it’s really about depth,” said Harlfinger. “We kind of elevated up to the occasion, and stepped up in a couple of areas that I didn’t really see coming. For example, in the boys’ long jump, we were not supposed to score any points, and Talon Smith got first place. I think he went into it ranked 10th and I think Braylen Dezarn was ranked ninth, and they finished first and fourth. It was a big surprise in a meet where we said it’ll probably be a 10-point edge here or there, and they went and scored 15 points that we weren’t accounting for.”
In addition to their breakout day in the long jump, in which Smith won with a 20’9” leap and Dezarn placed fourth with a 20’3.5”, the Panthers turned in several other impressive performances. In the high jump, senior 3A Indoor state runner-up Cal Drake cleared 6’4” to finish first, while junior Elijah Cochran upset two higher-ranked Falcons for second with a 6’2” personal-record. Drake also won the men’s triple jump (42’5.5”) and was named Men’s Field Event MVP for the conference.
In the pole vault, Franklin continued their stellar season, as 3A Indoor State Champion Blake Cassada and runner-up Adam Rogers tied for first at 14’0”, and 3A Indoor fourth-place finisher Aaron Jennings finished third at 13’0”. As of May 3, the vaulters were ranked first, second and fourth statewide in 3A, mirroring their finishes at the Indoor State Championship in February.
In the distance events, Franklin’s junior cross-country standouts also impressed, with Logan Russo winning the 800-meter run in 2:03.94 and Barrett Stork taking home the 1,600-meter run in 4:35.11. Stork placed second in the 800 with a 2:04.30, while Russo finished fourth in the 1,600 with a 4:42.67.
In the shot put, senior Seth Brewer took second with a 48’7” hurl, while fellow senior Aiden Stewart placed third in both the shot put (42’3”) and discus throw (119’4”). The Panthers also won a hard-fought 4x800-meter relay, beating Tuscola by less than a second in 9:08.90.
All told, the Panther men earned 228 points for the day, beating out West’s 201 for a team M7C title. For his work coaching Franklin to victory over a true state title contender, Harlfinger was named the conference’s Men’s Coach of the Year by his peers, but instead gave the award to one of the team’s other coaching stalwarts.
“We named Robbie Tompa our Boys’ Coach of the Year. He’s our sprint coach, and he handles all of our sprints and relays,” said Harlfinger. “He’s done a fantastic job. He makes just as much of a sacrifice to be there every single day as [women’s head coach Melissa Ward] and I. Usually that’s an award that goes to the head coach, and that drives me crazy because we’ve got seven coaches, and I don’t feel like I need to be the one that’s always being recognized. They tried to give it to me, and I said, ‘Well, I don’t want it. I want coach Tompa to have it.’”
Between claiming the team conference championship, Tompa’s Coach of the Year award and Drake’s Field Event MVP, the Panther men claimed nearly every title available to them at the meet. On the women’s side, Franklin matched their male teammates’ efforts.
“Boston Stringer won the pole vault,” said Harlfinger of the reigning 3A Indoor State Champion. “We weren’t supposed to go 1-2-3 in the pole vault, but we did with Adrian McKinley getting second and Addison Coker getting third. Charley Seagle had a big PR (personal record) in the shot put – she threw 38’1”; that should move her maybe into the top five in the state, maybe even higher. She won the shot put, Claire Ballard won the discus, Laura Covarrubias broke the school record in the [200-meter dash] and was named Field Event MVP, so if there was one standout it would probably be Laura.”
Having won the 200-meter in just 25.68 seconds, breaking the previous mark of 25.8 set by Valerie Parks in 2009, Covarrubias is now the owner or part-owner of four school records, including the long jump, triple jump and 4x200-meter relay. Her case for Field Event MVP was bolstered by wins in the long jump (16’7.5”) and triple jump (34’3”), and a second-place finish in the 100-meter dash (12.53).
In the 400-meter, junior Hope Smith nearly earned another win, placing second with a 1:02.36 dash. In the high jump, Franklin claimed two of the top three finishes, with sophomores Justus Bradford and Maddie Breeden tying for second at 4’4”. Standout senior Isabelle Duchemin placed third in the 100-meter hurdles (18.37) and fourth in the 200-meter dash (27.11), while Franklin also took the 4x200-meter relay in 1:54.34.
All told, the Panther women outscored West 209-183, earning a team conference title and a Women’s Coach of the Year award for head coach/distance specialist Melissa Ward.
“West Henderson, on the girls’ side, they’ve beaten us head-to-head the last four track meets, but for this one we kind of pushed all our chips to the middle of the table and said, ‘Alright, let’s stack it up and really see what we can do,’” said Harlfinger. “We’re starting to get healthy on the girls’ side, which we haven’t been for the last couple weeks. We’ve had a couple freak accidents, we had an athlete that rolled her ankle and was out for a couple weeks, and we’ve got some things that we’ve kind of worked through here and there. We’re starting to get healthy at the right time, and we could make a run at the regional and state meet on both sides, I think.”
After sweeping both sides of the M7C Championship, Franklin turned their attention to the 3A West Regional at North Lincoln May 12. As one of the top-ranked teams in the region, the Panthers’ finish will likely again come down to how they stack up with other elite teams.
“We won’t know a final number until entries are all in. The way that it’s set up, you’ve got to be top-16 in the event at the regional level,” said Harlfinger of the number of Panthers qualifying for the meet. “I tallied it up last night, and we’ve got 35 people that I’m going to enter. I think all 35 get in. … On the boys’ side, I figure it’s gonna be a three-team race with West Henderson, North Lincoln and us, and probably so on the girls’ side as well with those same three schools. There’s something like 35 schools in our region, so it’s an honor to be one of the top three schools there.”