It’s been a busy few weeks for Panther distance runners.
After ending their cross country season at the state meet Nov. 4, many team members jumped right into track and field, trading 5-kilometer treks over land for two-mile runs around a track. At the New Balance Dash for Doobie Nov. 18 at Reagan High School near Winston-Salem, five Panthers more than held their own with top opponents from around the Southeast.
“Every single one of them set a personal record, and it was such a fun event, too,” said Harlfinger. “It was only the two-mile race, there were 11 different heats, and there were about 30 people in each heat. They had a DJ playing music, and it was just for them – just for the distance kids. It was a unique experience, and they all ran really well, especially the girls.”
While most meets offer a majority of indoor track’s 15 events, the Dash for Doobie is put on specifically for distance runners, and has grown into one of the premiere distance meets in the region. The meet is named for former Reagan runner Nicholas “Doobie” Doub, who died tragically his senior year in 2011.
Versus more than 400 runners from seven different states, the Panthers turned in some eye-popping times.
“They were all in different heats and Mindi Holbrooks ran first. I think she ran a 12:29, and I was just beside myself because that’s really fast,” said Harlfinger. “Then, Amy Mendoza Lopez takes the track and runs 11:55 and breaks the school record for indoor. … I congratulated her and said, ‘Hey, great race – you’ve got the school record.’ She said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got it for about 15 minutes because Morgan [Cress] is getting ready to break it.’ And so Morgan ran a 12:05, which is the second-fastest time in our indoor school history.”
While Mendoza Lopez was able to keep her record, Cress returned home with quite a consolation prize. In addition to indoor, both times ranked among the fastest in school history overall, with Mendoza Lopez outpacing the outdoor record of 11:58 set by Dylan Garcia in 2020.
With more strong times on the men’s side from Franklin’s senior talismans, the reigning 3A State Champions continued to bolster their title defense.
“The boys ran really well, too. Logan Russo ran a 9:49 and Barrett Stork ran a 9:56; they had to run under 10 minutes to qualify for state,” he said. “The girls had to run under 12 minutes, and so Amy Mendoza Lopez was able to qualify on the girls side, which, if you watched our results from last year at the indoor state meet, our girls lost by one point. The only events we didn’t have anybody in were on the distance – we didn’t have any distance girls because our top girls were freshmen. That’s gonna be a dangerous group here in the next couple of years.”
Between trusty veterans like Russo and Stork and several young rising stars on the women’s side, 2023 has already been a banner year for Panther distance runners. With a real chance at both men’s and women’s 3A state titles this February, Harlfinger says meets like the Dash for Doobie are essential to gain experience against top competition.
“That was the whole purpose of taking them to that event,” he said. “We looked at the times that came out of that meet last year, and we were scratching our heads saying, ‘How did that kid run that fast?’ They were 20 seconds faster at this meet than they were at the state meet, and one of the things that play into that is that they just wrapped up cross country season so they’re still fairly close to their peaks. We’re racing under the lights, we’ve got the DJ playing, we’re racing some of the fastest kids in the Southeast – some even in the country – and it just made for a really good environment.”