A dominant season is at an end for Panther JV hoops.
Having both beaten West Henderson in Round 1 of the Mountain Seven Tournament, Franklin’s boys and girls teams advanced to the conference finals Feb. 20. With two wins over Pisgah in front of their home fans on Tom Raby Court, both teams put the finishing touches on their respective M7 titles.
Women
Having met in the conference final in each of the prior three years, Franklin and Pisgah were the M7’s best teams once again, ending the regular season in a three-way tie for first with West at 8-2. In routing the Falcons 46-17 in the conference semis, the Panthers entered their last game with a full head of steam.
Having split two regular-season games with Franklin this year (a 16-point Panther win in Canton and a 13-point Black Bear win in Franklin), Pisgah came out firing in the rubber match, leading 6-0 three minutes in. Bailey Wooten kickstarted the Panthers for five points and two steals, but Franklin ended the quarter down 10-5.
Franklin’s offense gained traction in the second, led by six points apiece from Bailey Bryant and Sydney McConnell. Bryant added two assists and two steals as well, but Pisgah ended the half up 36-23.
Aubrey Newsome turned red-hot in the third, racking up six points, two blocks, a steal and an assist. The freshman’s efforts helped Franklin claw back into the game, ending the quarter down just 45-39.
The Panthers maintained their momentum into the fourth, getting eight points from Newsome and Finley Moffitt to tie the game at 48. From there both defenses held firm in the final minute, until Wooten drew a shooting foul with six seconds to play. With the game on the line the sophomore stayed cool under pressure, calmly sinking both free throws to put her team up by two. On their final possession Pisgah likewise drew a foul, but missed a game-tying free throw to lose 50-49.
“I guess if I could put a headline on last night’s game it was ‘No quit’ – I mean, they just didn’t quit,” said head coach Bekah Brooks after the game. “You get down 10, OK; you get down 12, that’s hard to do at a JV level where you don’t have a dominant scorer all the time. You get down 16 and you’ve got a problem, but they just locked in. At halftime we went in and talked about some things, and stuck back to the game plan. That was the biggest thing – what we had planned for that game, and we couldn’t waiver from that just because they were making some buckets.”
Versus an 18-3 Pisgah team with a junior on the court (having gained special permission from the conference to expand a depleted roster), Franklin faced an uphill climb with a 13-point halftime deficit. After spurring her team to hustle, box out for rebounds and attack the paint, Brooks credited her players for the stunning comeback win.
“We made that adjustment at halftime, and I saw in their eyes that they were not ready to quit. ... I’ve never seen a bunch of girls dig in and have as much grit as they did from play to play,” she said. “Finley got in some foul trouble there, and usually she’s our leading scorer, but Bailey Wooten went in and had phenomenal minutes in the game. Sydney McConnell went in in the first half and kind of changed the tempo of the game in the post. Aubrey Newsome played lights-out as a point guard taking care of the basketball. Lass [Ward] was a little on the hesitant side, but I’m telling you what, when I put her in late in the game when Kyelynn [Hervey] went down, she had a huge rebound which resulted in a foul, and she hustled her butt off and tried to do exactly what I asked her to do. Kyelynn played smart and had to take care of the basketball some at two-guard instead of three-guard. ... It was one of those things where I was just proud to be a Panther.”
With their thrilling comeback win over Pisgah, Franklin ended the season at 17-2 overall and captured their second straight Mountain Seven title. In winning a fifth conference championship in her incredible ninth-straight conference final, Brooks said this year’s team will stand out for years to come.
“Man, I’m just so proud of them. This is a great bunch, and they were a great bunch to coach. No selfishness, no pettiness – none of that. They loved each other, we were like a family, and this will be one of those years I never forget.”
Men
Having beaten West in their own semifinal, Franklin’s first-place (11-1) JV boys also hosted Pisgah in the conference finals, in a rematch of two narrow Panther wins this regular season. There Gunner McConnell and Jake Pendergrass looked sharp, combining for six points and three steals to end the first quarter up 9-3. McConnell turned red-hot in the second, starting the quarter with three straight 3-pointers to lead 20-8 at the half.
The Panthers kept firing from long range in the third, getting another 3-pointer from McConnell and two from Paxton Sutton. Pisgah then scored the next 10 points, cutting Franklin’s lead to 30-24 inside five minutes to play. After a short timeout the Panthers finished strong however, getting eight more points from Sutton to win 46-37.
“Last night we knew we had to stop [Black Bear freshman Kampbell Kruk]. He’s been just lighting people up, and we were able to kind of keep him corralled,” said head coach Tres Rogers the morning after the game. “I haven’t looked back, and that was a low-scoring game for us last night, but I think that that’s the first game that we’ve made more threes than we did twos this year. I could be wrong, but we wound up with six two-point field goals and seven threes between Paxton and Gunner. Gunner made four and Paxton made three ... so, both of them wound up with 17 last night, and that was just a great night for them.”
As two of Franklin’s principal offensive threats throughout the season, Sutton and McConnell capped excellent seasons Thursday, in McConnell’s final JV game ahead of his junior season. In finishing at 19-2 as Mountain Seven Conference Champions, Rogers credited his young team for their growth throughout the year.
“Overall, we just had a great season. My expectation is always to win – I hate to lose – but at the beginning of the year and even in the summer when we were sitting there looking at it, we started out with 12 freshmen and four sophomores,” said Rogers. “Really, Gunner was the only one that played at all last year – Jake played a little bit, but Judah [Bradford] and [Caiden] Mason didn’t get much time, and we were so inexperienced. All four of us [Rogers, varsity head coach Doug Plemmons, and assistants Jack Gloyne and Mark Sutton] sat down and we were looking at it, and Coach P was like, ‘This is going to be a rewarding year, because they’re going to get so much better as they go,’ and they did – they just got better every day. Every single one of those guys have gotten better at basketball throughout the season.”
With just four returning players and very little game experience, the Panthers defied expectations this year. In his perennial goal of preparing underclassmen for varsity, Rogers said this season should pay dividends for years to come.
“We were really going, ‘If we finish .500, a little bit above .500, that’s probably a pretty good year with this group,’ and they have just far exceeded that,” he said. “They just played great. They finished out the season, and we won some games that we probably shouldn’t have won ... and I think that transfers to later on. Sometimes you’ve got to learn to win, and when you get it like that and you win some close ballgames, you lean back on it and go, ‘Hey, if I’m in this situation, don’t give up – just keep fighting and see what happens.’ I think that’s gonna transfer from not just this year, but to next year and on for these guys.”