Panther volleyball is the champion of the Mountain Seven Conference.
Heading into the week of Oct. 2, Bekah Brooks’ team boasted a 9-1 record in the M7C, tied for first with West Henderson with two conference matches to play. With victories at Smoky Mountain and in a home thriller versus West, Franklin secured its first outright conference title in more than a decade.
On Monday, Oct. 2, the Panthers hosted Robbinsville in a Senior Night rematch of their Aug. 14 win over the Black Knights. With each of the team’s six seniors (Jacelyn Rios, Jocelyn Rios, Angelica Roca, McCall Sanders, Ella Brinson and Talley Kinsland) on the court to start the match, Roca and Kinsland gave the Franklin fans a show, both making incredible diving saves to keep rallies alive. After tying the set at 10 the Panthers began to pull away, getting multiple points apiece from Sanders and both Rios sisters, as well as another diving save from Sanders. Franklin went on to win the first set 25-17.
The Panthers kept rolling into the second, taking a 15-8 lead behind three points apiece from Jocelyn Rios and Ryan Green. Again, Franklin stymied the Knights on defense, cruising to a 25-14 win behind more tough saves from McKayla Sanders and Cali Queen.
Robbinsville regrouped to start the third, trailing narrowly 14-12 despite more tough defense from the Panthers. Franklin soon dashed the Knights’ hopes however, claiming 11 of the last 13 points en route to a 25-14 win.
The next night, the Panthers traveled to Sylva for a Mountain Seven clash with Smoky Mountain. In a rematch of their 3-0 home win Sept. 7, Franklin shot out of the gate against the Mustangs, winning 10 of the first 12 points including three from Queen and two from Jocelyn Rios. By then their lead was simply too great for Smoky to erase, and the Panthers coasted to a 25-12 win behind three kills from Green.
The Mustangs doubled their efforts in the second set, sitting tied at 11 despite two points apiece from Queen and Jocelyn Rios. Suddenly, the set turned on a dime however, as Franklin kicked into high gear to claim the set’s final 14 points. Five of the 14 came on kills by Jocelyn Rios, while Queen, Kinsland and junior Kyrah Bowles added two apiece.
Franklin’s dominance of Smoky continued into the third, forcing a Mustang timeout with the Panthers up 12-4. Bowles, McKayla Sanders and junior McKenna Plemmons played stifling defense en route to a 25-15 win.
Two nights after dispatching Smoky, Franklin returned to Tom Raby Court for the most-anticipated match of the year. Having handed the 10-1 Panthers their only conference loss and sitting half a game back in the standings at 9-1, West Henderson entered the match with a real chance to steal the conference title.
On a day many fans had circled on their calendars since the teams first released their schedules this summer, the atmosphere inside Tom Raby Court was electric, with supporters of both sides packing the stands on Pink-Out Night for breast cancer research. In a rematch of Franklin’s 3-1 loss (25-22, 25-21, 19-25, 25-21) in Hendersonville Sept. 12, the Falcons hit the ground running early, taking a 14-9 lead to force a Panther timeout. After talking things over, Franklin soon cut their deficit to 18-16, but West claimed seven of the final 10 points to take the set 25-19.
After committing multiple errors in the first set, the Panthers looked like a different team in the second, winning the first five points to force an early Falcon timeout. Franklin continued stonewalling West on defense however, turning four points from Queen and two aces from McKayla Sanders into a convincing 25-12 win.
West regrouped to begin the third set, sitting tied at 8 despite a difficult save from Queen and two points each from Bowles and Jocelyn Rios. The tie didn’t last long however, as Franklin soon turned red-hot to claim 17 of the final 21 points. Queen poured four points into the remarkable run, while Kinsland and promising freshman Audrey Pressley added two apiece to the 25-12 win.
With their backs against the wall down two sets to one, West came out firing in the fourth, taking a 15-11 lead despite two points and a save from Bowles. After talking things over in a timeout though, Franklin slowly erased their deficit, tying the set at 20 behind two points off serves from Bowles.
For the next several points, the rivals stayed neck-and-neck, trading blows until reaching a 23-23 dead heat. After West hit the net to put Franklin up 24-23, McCall Sanders set a ball for Bowles near the left sideline, and Bowles sent a rocket over the net for an emphatic match-point kill. With the home fans in a frenzy, Brooks passed out “2023 Conference Champion” T-shirts to the team.
“It’s crazy. I’ve always dreamed of this since I was a freshman, and I knew this year we could do it with the team we have,” said Jocelyn Rios, who posted several big kills throughout the night. “From this morning to now, everybody was excited. I woke up before my alarm because I was thinking about it, and coach sent us all a text saying, ‘Let’s beat these Falcons.’ All these emotions … we did it tonight.”
“It’s kind of one of those feelings where it literally could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing for some teams, and it could be a once-in-a-decade thing for a lot of other teams,” said Brooks the next morning of clinching the conference title. “I didn’t want these girls to forget this night – all of it is because of them. Take the coaching out of it, take all of the things that we’ve done from 9/11 to Pink-Out Night to Senior Night or anything else; these girls have practiced, devoted time, energy and effort, they have had grit, passion, determination, and they deserve it. They deserve to feel all the feelings, they deserve a T-shirt, they deserve a picture for them to remember. I just wanted them to savor the moment, and be able to look back on this and know that everything was worth the fight.”
After winning their first outright conference championship since 2011, the Panthers had just one more regular-season match to play, a trip to the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School after press time Oct. 9. As conference champions, they’ll have a bye in the first round of the Mountain Seven Tournament Oct. 12, and advance straight into the conference semifinals Oct. 16.
“We go up from here, communicate, and always be up,” said Rios of the key to Franklin’s nascent postseason run. “Always keep the momentum, and keep pushing.”