Franklin’s 8U softball All-Stars are district champs.
After winning the N.C. District 5 Little League title, the team traveled to Lake Norman July 5-8 for the State Tournament. With a blowout win and two narrow losses, they brought a memorable season to an end.
“We sit down as a group of coaches at the end of the Little League season, and each team can nominate as few or as many players from their team as they feel are able to make the commitment and really shine on the field as an All-Star,” said head coach Kayla Schulte, who has coached her daughter, Harper’s teams for the last five years and took over the 8U All-Stars this summer. “And then, amongst the ones that are nominated, we then vote on the top 12 from the Little League. … We pulled from six teams this year, all from Franklin. As we were looking into the different teams like McDowell and King and even Blue Ridge here in our own district, they kind of pull from different counties, so I think Franklin is just a really unique little place in that all the players are representing our town of Franklin.”
After assembling Franklin’s 12 best 8U players, Schulte and her assistants readied for the All-Star season. With precious few days to prepare, they had little time to waste.
“We had about two weeks of practices to really kind of get the girls in positions that we felt like were beneficial to the team, and that’s something that I kind of had to stress all along because all 12 of our players were infielders in the regular season in community league,” said Schulte of the time between finalizing her team and the start of the District Tournament. “So, we really talked about when you play at this higher level, outfielders are so important, and you play such a vital role no matter where you are on this team. We had about two weeks of practices and we were practicing four days a week, and then we had a scrimmage day here in Franklin where we got to scrimmage one of the teams that we would be seeing at district. We scrimmaged a doubleheader against Great Smokies [Sylva], and honestly, we did not do very well.”
With just two weeks to acclimate players to their new lineup, the team experienced some natural growing pains. In the district tournament however, the team went on a tear.
“We lost both of those games and then we had one more week of practice,” said Schulte. “That’s when our district tournament started, and then when we got into district play we went undefeated. So that was really awesome that they just pulled together, they worked hard, and had a real big turnaround there.”
Just one week after falling to Great Smokies, Franklin took revenge in their opening game, routing their Sylva rivals 15-1. Combined with a 10-0 blowout of Transylvania, Franklin entered their final game with Blue Ridge one win shy of a trip to state.
“It was a good game. We called a timeout in the final inning – we had two outs with a runner on third base – and our pitcher made just a great play,” said Schulte of Phoenix Wilson, one of the team’s key leaders. “We wanted them to go in just knowing, “Hey, we have to play hard,” so we didn’t tell them, “If we secure this game, we’re going to be district champs.” We wanted them to know that after they put in the work, and that was very rewarding to see the looks on their little faces when they brought the banner out. To know that they had secured that district championship, that was really a cool moment.”
With a heart-pounding 7-5 win over Blue Ridge, which draws players from Clay, Graham, Cherokee and Polk (TN) counties, Franklin captured their district title and punched their tickets to state. Just one week later they traveled to Lake Norman, where they met even tougher opponents.
“Our first game we were up against McDowell, who we had faced last year – we knew they were a strong team,” said Schulte. “They actually come from a county that, not only are they a Little League team, but they also play as a travel team together, so we knew we were up against some tough competition with girls that have played together for probably at least a couple seasons now. We really hung with them inning to inning, even at one point going ahead, but then we fell short with a 16-13 loss. That was really hard for the girls – they were a little down after that game – but as coaches we really praised them for how well they did because just a game before that, [McDowell] had put up like 15 to 20 runs against another team, so we were very proud with how well they hung with them.”
“Our second game was against King, and we actually were up by six runs in the fifth inning. They are another team that plays travel ball together, and they came out in the fifth inning, put the bat on the ball, and got some great runs. We ended up taking that game to eight innings, which, it’s typically a six-inning game, so we were just neck-and-neck. … They were the ‘home’ team and scored the final run to make it 16-15, so that was a heartbreaker.”
Versus two teams from more populous areas that play together year-round, Franklin more than held their own. While the losses left them with slim hopes of advancing past the pool play round, they did bring home a consolation prize.
“The girls had kind of hung their heads after that game because they did know that if we had lost both that it probably wasn’t looking good to advance into the tournament, so we just told them we’re going to go out and have fun, play your game, and that’s exactly what they did,” said Schulte. “We came out strong against the final team, put 13 runs on the board and run-ruled them in the fourth inning.”
With a 13-3 rout of South Durham, Franklin ended their tournament on a high note. With the odds stacked against them versus the state’s best competition, Schulte said the team had no reason to be ashamed.
“We had so much community support – grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends – that had come from Franklin to support these girls at state, and that was just incredible to see,” she said. “We’re just so proud of this little team to be able to put a team like this together in five weeks and go up against these strong teams. They should be very proud of themselves.”