Panther cross country are state-bound.
After the Mountain Eight Conference meet the previous week, on Oct. 25 the team traveled to the Tryon Equestrian Center for the 5A West Regionals. There, nine Panthers including the full girls team punched their tickets to the State Championship meet.
“Well, we came in with a plan – the goal was to get third, and we did,” said head coach Melissa Ward of her veteran girls. “We kind of set them up with a play-by-play of when to warm up, when to fuel, when to get a sip of water and just have them beyond ready to go at the start line, and they executed pretty well. I think that helped them getting into race mode, but the vibe on the bus was different too – they were just ready to go. ... It seemed like [at] conference they really just got in their heads before they even raced, so they definitely came together more cohesively as a team.”
Versus 82 runners from nine other teams across the region, Franklin’s girls continued their strong season, led by senior Amy Mendoza Lopez’s 12th-place finish with a time of 20:20:87. Junior Morgan Cress placed 16th in 20:51.84, followed closely by senior Mindi Holbrooks (18th, 21:19.87). Promising freshman Abigail Timan placed 22nd (22:00.32), just before senior Abigail Pope in 28th (22:31.89). Freshman Molly Radecki (24:43.49) and sophomore Lily Tux Xol (25:42.46) rounded out Franklin’s scorecard in 58th and 64th.
Excluding those of rivals not representing full teams, overall the numerical values of Franklin’s top five finishes (12+16+18+21+26) added up to 93 points, good for third place behind North Lincoln (20) and West Henderson (52). As one of the region’s six fastest teams, they punched their tickets to the State Championship meet at the Ivey Redmon Sports complex in Kernersville Nov. 1. On the boys side, a smaller group of Panthers also impressed.
“We only took the three boys – Ken [Modlin], Evan [Pyles], and Jase [Rogers],” said Ward. “We could have taken a team, but we were ranked pretty low – or pretty high, I guess you could say – and we were not going to place as a team, so they were going to be qualifying more as individuals. Several of the boys had other sports starting for winter and just kind of wanted to go ahead and get in the groove with those, and we left it up to them if they wanted to race or not. Those three wanted to make a go for it and see if they could qualify, and, and Jase actually came through as our first runner on the boys side.”
Continuing a strong freshman year, Rogers placed 35th in a 101-person field (18:37.17), finishing back-to-back with Pyles in 36th (18:41.61). As two of the top seven boys not representing full teams, they also advanced to Kernersville as individuals, with Modlin just missing the cut in 44th (19:22.12). With just one meet left in the season, Ward said she’s been encouraged by both teams improving their times.
“Jase PR’ed [set a personal record] by like 20 seconds, and I think Evan was really close to his PR, if not a true PR,” she said. “On the girls side I know Mindi had a season PR, which was pretty impressive because she came in sick. ... She almost didn’t go, and then she PR’ed for the season, so that was kind of wild – she hung with Morgan almost the whole time. We were actually going over some of the kids that did our summer program too, and we’re looking at one-to-two minute improvements from last year to this year for most of the kids.”
In a sport which runners strive to post their times late in the year, setting personal records at regionals is a promising sign. While Franklin can only do so much to improve this week – Ward will limit the team to light workouts to keep their legs fresh – she said the Panthers’ outlook is right where it needs to be.
“They were really, really happy,” said Ward of her team qualifying for state. “I think they finally saw like, ‘OK, when we actually work together as a team and we execute the plan, it’s like magic – we do exactly what we’re supposed to do. ... They do seem to be having fun, and that’s the important part is to keep those same vibes going into state. They also had Homecoming right after that too, so it was ‘OK, this is exciting; now we’re going to go get ready for Homecoming.”