With just two more games to play, Panther baseball is still alive for a state playoff berth.
Entering the last two weeks of the season, Franklin hung on the edge of the 3A West field, likely needing three wins in their last four games to join its top 32 teams. In beating North Buncombe but falling to Asheville, they dropped to 36th in the region-wide rankings ahead of a crucial season-ending series with East Henderson.
On Tuesday, April 23 the team traveled to Asheville for a difficult non-conference game with the Cougars. The game’s outcome was far from top of mind for the Panthers however, after senior ace Josiah Hursey lost his mother to a rare fungal infection April 19.
“The score didn’t matter Tuesday, and it didn’t matter to the guys. It was, ‘Let’s get out there, get Joe on the mound, and let’s rally around Joe,” said head coach Jared Greenwood. “There were a lot of emotions, and it was a very, very hard day for the entire team. Mentally, it was probably the hardest thing these guys have been through with the team, and definitely for Joe – I couldn’t imagine trying to go through that. But it was a victory, honestly, just for that young kid to get back out on the mound and do what he did.”
Just four days removed from one of the worst losses imaginable, Hursey chose to return to what he knows best, exemplifying the extraordinary healing power of sports. While Franklin fell to the talented Cougars 11-1, Greenwood said having their ace back on the mound was worth more than any win.
“He threw the ball great – he really did,” said the skipper. “It was a very, very emotional game, especially after it was over, but it needed to happen. I think that gave us the ability to kind of move on with Joe, and I think it was great for Joe to know, ‘We’re out here playing for you; to hell with the score.’ Tuesday was a very tough day, but it was a good day – it really was. We needed to get through that and Joe needed to get through that, and we did.”
After an emotion-filled game versus Asheville, two nights later the team traveled to North Buncombe for another non-conference game. There, the team’s outing was much more enjoyable on multiple fronts.
“We scored one in the top of the first, and they scored in the bottom of the first, and it was a 1-1 game all the way to the seventh,” said Greenwood. “We came up in the top of the seventh, and Reed [Raby] and [Damion] Bowles both drew a walk to get two runners on. Ian [Knepp] missed a bunt, and then Malachi [Hayes] came up. [With three balls and no strikes] we give him the green light, and he smashes one off the fence in right-center. Jaxon [Hursey] comes up and hits a super-hard ground ball to third, the guy boots it, throws it away and that scores a run. Jayden Rogers comes up and hits another double in the gap to right-center, and pushes across that fourth run.”
While North Buncombe gave them a scare by plating a run in the bottom of the inning, Franklin’s three-run top of the seventh propelled them to a critical 4-2 win, keeping their hopes alive in the 3A West playoff race.
In defeating North Buncombe, the Panthers ended the week as the 3A West’s 35th-ranked team, but had dropped to the #36 spot as of press time. In ending their regular season with a Mountain Seven Conference series with East Henderson, Greenwood said Franklin needed two wins to sneak into the state playoffs.
“We had to win that one yesterday to play for this week, take care of business this week coming up and have a chance to go to the playoffs,” he said. “We’re gonna have to take care of business next week with East, and a lot of those teams in front of us are done – they’ve finished up and don’t have any more games on the schedule, so their numbers can’t change. There’s a few teams in the upper twenties with North Buncombe being one of them, and they have five more games and four of them are pretty tough. So, there’s an opportunity there with a couple of those teams to drop and move everybody up, and if we take care of East we should jump.”