Panther baseball has earned a signature win.
After a tough start to the season, on St. Patrick’s Day week the young team faced two more difficult tests in a Mountain Seven game with Pisgah and a nonconference clash with Erwin. In a thrilling comeback win over the Warriors, Franklin gave their home fans a Friday night treat.
After a 7-6 loss to Pisgah four days before, on March 18 the Panthers traveled to Canton for Game 2 of the conference series. There they ran into a buzzsaw in the Black Bears, who protected their home field 10-0. The loss dropped Franklin to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the Mountain Seven.
“I didn’t sleep a wink Tuesday after the game – I thought about it all night,” said Panther skipper Jared Greenwood. “I reached out to people that I trust that have played a lot of baseball, that have managed professional baseball or coached in college; and I came in, we didn’t slam the doors, we didn’t throw a fit, I didn’t run them. That’s the worst we’ve played, and those guys know that they played that bad, and that’s what I love about this team – they’re competitors, so there’s no point in doing that. We pointed out some mistakes we made – our body language was horrible, our attitudes were bad, just the things things we can fix – and so we worked on some of that stuff Wednesday.”
Following a lackluster game Tuesday, the team doubled their efforts the rest of the week, even taking batting practice amid snow flurries Thursday. On Friday they returned to McConnell Field to face 3-5 Erwin.
The Warriors drew first blood on Franklin’s home field, belting a two-out home run to left field in the first. They then doubled their lead in the third, plating another run with a walk, a stolen base and a single.
Will Rauers answered in the bottom of the inning, drawing a two-out walk, moving to third on an Addix Sutton single and scoring on a balk by Erwin’s pitcher. From there Franklin turned a minor jam into a full-blown two-out rally, plating four more runs off a hit batsman, an error, two stolen bases and four more singles.
Having batted around the order in the third, Rauers sparked Franklin once again in the fourth, leading off with a single, stealing second and third and scoring on an RBI single from Paxton Sutton. The Panthers’ bats stayed hot into the fifth, taking a commanding 8-2 lead behind a walk and a steal from Gunner McConnell and singles from Anderson Terrell and Addix Sutton.
Erwin regrouped in the top of the sixth, scoring on a walk, a wild pitch and a double. With the bases loaded and just one out, sophomore Caden Mason stayed cool on the mound, coaxing two big outs to maintain an 8-3 lead.
Erwin’s bats turned red-hot in the final inning, scoring three more runs with two singles, a wild pitch, a passed ball and a two-run homer to left field. The Panthers were able to stop the bleeding however, and escaped with an 8-6 win.
“They’re a good ball team and they play in that Asheville conference, so they’re used to these kinds of games,” said Greenwood after the come-from-behind win. “It was good for us to be in one and come out on this side of it, and that’s what we’ve got to find as a team, is, ‘Who’s going to be the guy that comes in and gets it done out of the pen?’ Cason did a phenomenal job coming in, and that’s a lot of stress for a sophomore, a sophomore [closer Cayson McAllister] and a freshman catcher [Jacob Mascorro] that’s never caught varsity before, because our other two catchers [Garrett Young and Andrew Vinson] are hurt. That was a very high-stress situation, and I thought they handled it great.”
Following the thrilling win over Erwin, the Panthers hosted North Henderson after press time March 25 for the first of a two-game home-and-away Mountain Seven series.