It’s been a long time coming for Panther cross country.
With their own facilities in disrepair and few other suitable venues nearby, the program has hosted precious few home meets in the past several years. Following completion of the new Macon Middle School track this spring, on Aug. 13 the team made a long-awaited return.
“It feels great, because I can do stuff at home now,” said senior Amy Mendoza-Lopez of hosting the FHS 2-Miler, the team’s first official meet of the fall season. “I can prepare myself better, I think … because I can eat more, I can sleep more and I can recover more, instead of waking up at like 7 a.m. to be on a bus for three hours.”
For a sport in which fresh legs are paramount, spending hours on cramped bus seats before a race can present a challenge, not to mention the added time and logistics involved. In a small, shortened race Wednesday evening at the Lewis Penland Sr. Sports Complex, Franklin enjoyed the comforts of home while readying for the season.
“I felt really good about it, especially to see what the boys can do, because we really didn’t have a clue,” said head coach Melissa Ward, now entering her sixth year at the helm. “Evan [Pyles] had run the two-mile, but that’s about it, so that was kind of cool just to see what they could do and really see what their training has done for them so far. On the girls’ side it was kind of a gamble to see, ‘How are they going to play this out, and who’s going to take the lead?’ Running with the boys was a good way to have some competition other than just the girls, so I think that was kind of fun putting them all together that way.”
In a kind of preseason conditioning test, spanning two miles instead of 3.1 with boys and girls running side-by-side, Ward sought to put both teams on the track and let the chips fall where they may.
After some initial uncertainty as to who might be the fastest, Pyles made a statement for the Panther men, placing second overall with a time of 11:45.08. Junior Ken Modlin placed fourth overall (12:03.55), followed by freshman Jase Rogers (12:27.26). Junior Timothy Bishop finished sixth (12:51.61), with Conner Ramey (12:55.22), Malik Walker (13:02.55) and Zeke Moffitt (17:18.00) rounding out Franklin’s top seven.
“It was really cool to see Evan take the lead on our team,” said Ward. “Technically he is the most experienced as far as distance running, but I wasn’t sure. Ken is a monster and shows up out of nowhere sometimes, but putting Evan up there really was like, ‘OK, let’s see if he can own it – not just run, but really own that spot.’ He definitely earned it, so that was cool.”
While Franklin’s men’s results were impressive, especially from a group with no seniors, before the race they were far from a foregone conclusion. Having initially been unsure they’d even have enough boys to field a team this offseason, Ward credited her new assistant for his recruiting efforts.
“Matt was a big part of that – he has a way with kind of convincing people,” she said of Franklin’s track and field head coach, Matt Harlfinger, who has taken on an expanded role with cross country this year. “I don’t know how he does it, but he convinced some kids to come out, and they’re doing it – they’re showing up, they’re not just putting their toe in the water. … This is more of a building year on the boys side, but still, it’s going to be kind of cool to see what they do.”
On the girls side, having placed 45th and 22nd, respectively, at last year’s state meet, Mendoza-Lopez and junior Morgan Cress led the way once again, placing first and second with times of 12:31.35 and 12:54.11. Hot on Cress’s heels was senior Abigail Pope, who shattered her previous two-mile record by 12 seconds with a 12:55.35. Fellow senior Mindi Hobrooks finished close behind Pope at 13:06.06, followed by Breanna Pendergrass (15:01.48), Lana Walker (15:14.39) and Lily Tux Xol (16:10.89). After changing their offseason program this year, Ward said she was pleased with the early returns.
“Matt really wanted to dive into things when he came on and just help me kind of create a better system, and see, ‘Are we doing anything that’s mediocre? Do we need to do something a little bit better?,’” she said. “He actually reached out to several different coaches from other high schools to college distance coaches, and basically had a bunch of people willing to share what they do in the summer. Some of them were very cohesive, drawn-out, detailed, several pages of all kinds of information, and some of them were very basic, and I just kind of picked those apart and put together a plan of a little bit of everybody’s stuff. … A lot of what we did in prior years we’ve kept as kind of a base, but changed up some of the true workouts, and I think it’s helped the kids to just have something fresh, something new, and not just the same-old.”
“I think it’s been going good – I like the running plan,” said Mendoza-Lopez. “It’s nice that Matt gave us a schedule for it, because even if we can’t make it to practice and ask him in the moment, we know what to do.”
Following their first action of the season Wednesday, Ward began individualizing the team’s workouts based on the meet’s results.
“Matt and Mel have been communicating with us really well – they’re just easy to talk to,” said Cress. “Like today, I saw how everyone was really close to each other, and overall we have good team chemistry, so I think it’s going to be good.”