Panther baseball is playoff-bound.
On the final week of the regular season, Jared Greenwood’s team faced a pair of tough games, a Mountain Seven clash with first-place West Henderson and a trip to non-conference foe North Buncombe. In handing West their only conference loss of the year, Franklin improved their Mountain Seven record to 7-5, ending the season in third place ahead of the first round of the state playoffs.
On Monday, May 1, the Panthers traveled to West to take on the conference-leading, 11-0 Falcons. In a rematch of their 4-0 home loss April 25, Franklin’s offense exploded to spoil the Falcons’ Senior Night.
“It was a back-and-forth game for the first five innings,” said Greenwood. “We’d score some runs, they’d come back and tie it up or take the lead, and in the top of the sixth we ended up putting a six-spot on there. We hit the ball hard all night long, and were able to hit and run and bunt and bunt for a hit and do some awesome stuff. … That’s a big conference win for us that locked up third place.”
After West hung around throughout the early innings, Franklin’s offense blew the game wide-open in the sixth, exploding for six runs en route to a hard-fought 10-8 win. After rescheduling the game due to rain the previous week, with junior ace Josiah Hursey on a rest day, Greenwood credited position players Malachi Hayes, Ian Knepp and Reed Raby for eating up innings on the mound.
“We started Malachi, who gave us two solid innings, and they’re a really, really good hitting team,” he said. “Reed Raby came in and threw three awesome innings, and then Ian closed it out and threw the last two innings. All three competed and gave us a chance to hit and win, and we did.”
In addition to Hayes, Knepp and Raby’s work on the mound, seven Panthers posted hits in the game, led by a 3 for 4 day with two doubles and four RBIs from senior Caleb Cloer. Cloer finishes the season with the conference’s best on-base percentage (.550) and third-best batting average (.449). Senior catcher Davis Anders ranked first in slugging (.767), and second in both batting average (.450) and on-base percentage (.542).
After their thrilling win over West, the next night the Panthers traveled to Weaverville for a regular-season finale with North Buncombe. In a rematch of their 4-2 loss to the Black Hawks April 5, Franklin gave up eight runs in the bottom of the first and were unable to make up the difference.
Despite their 12-3 loss to a quality Black Hawks team, the Panthers did end the week on an optimistic note. Due in part to their win over West, Franklin finished with an 11-9 record for the season, earning one of the 3A West Region’s final playoff berths as the 27th seed. The Panthers kicked off the 3A State Tournament May 9 after press time.