Panther men’s golf is in the thick of the Mountain Seven race.
In their last two weeks of the regular season the team faced a busy slate of matches, traversing WNC ahead of the start of the conference tournament. In trading wins back and forth with powerhouse Pisgah, Franklin continued to round into postseason form.
On Monday, March 17, five Panthers traveled to Springdale Golf Club near Canton for a round versus multiple conference foes. Max McClure and Tanner Jones tied for Franklin’s low round, each finishing five strokes over par with 77. Senior Cole Martin was close behind at 80, with Gabe Stilwell (91) and Braylen Dulicai (93) rounding out Franklin’s card.
Two days later the team traveled to Highlands Falls Country Club for an intrasquad qualifying round with its entire seven-man roster. There Jones turned in a spectacular round for Franklin, finishing just one stroke over par with 71. McClure (81), Martin (85) and Nico Abbate (85) posted scores in the 80s, with Dulicai (93), Stilwell (96) and Will VanderWoude (98) in the 90s.
On Monday, March 24, the team returned to Highlands Falls for another official match with conference foes. There Jones turned in another impressive score (74) followed by McClure (83) and Martin (88). Abbate was hot on Martin’s heels at 90, with Dulicai rounding out Franklin’s card at 97.
Two days later they traveled to the Maggie Valley Club for their final match of the regular season. In a kind of conference tournament preview with their six Mountain Seven rivals, the Panthers battled difficult conditions.
“Well, it depends on what you look at. If you look at just our scores, we didn’t play that great,” said head coach Ryan Raby of the round in Haywood County. “But if you look at everybody else’s scores, we still won the match … The wind was howling, and obviously it’s been super-dry so the course was dry and fast, so it was brutal playing conditions. In fact, nobody in the whole field shot in the 70s – the lowest score of the day was 81.”
Playing amid unusually high winds throughout the week, the round provided golfers some valuable experience. While Wednesday’s scores weren’t up to their standards on paper, Raby said the team is ready for the postseason.
“It was tough conditions, but we persevered there and pulled out a two-stroke victory over Pisgah,” he said. “I feel pretty good about the fact that we were able to go into not necessarily their home course, but a course that certainly every player on their team is very familiar with. … We were able to go in there on their course and beat them, and they returned the favor to us on Monday – we played them at Highlands Falls, and they beat us by one stroke. … I think they beat us by a stroke or two [at Springdale] as well, so like I said, it’s going to be back and forth.”
Following their last regular-season match, the team turned their attention to the Mountain Seven Conference Tournament, which will tee off at Sky Valley Country Club April 9. In the first of the tournament’s three 18-hole rounds, Raby said his team will need to cash in on their home-course advantage.
“That’s something I actually talked to them about last night when we got back, is that we need to have a really good day at Sky Valley,” he said. “It’s a course that over the last couple years other teams have not played that well on during the conference tournament, so we need to go out with the mindset of trying to establish as big a lead as we can in that first round. … Heading into the second round at [Etowah Valley Golf Club], I think it doesn’t really favor either one of us, and then the third round being in Waynesville [at the Waynesville Inn and Golf Club] is kind of advantage Pisgah, so I think we’ve got to establish as big a lead as we can in that first round.”
Having battled Pisgah for conference supremacy in each of the past few seasons, including a close second-place finish at last year’s conference tournament (945-959), Franklin might boast their best team yet this year. With several difficult matches under their belts, Raby feels his team is up to the challenge.
“I’ve certainly voiced my expectations to them, but I don’t think I had to because they had high expectations of themselves,” he said. “These guys are a tremendous group of competitors – they like to compete, and they don’t like to feel that anybody’s better than them, especially that same Pisgah team from the last two years. … They’ve played on hard courses, they’ve played on easy courses, they’ve played in wet conditions and dry conditions and windy conditions and cold and warm; so they’re ready, and they just have to know that and take confidence in the fact that the process has set them up to be where they need to be right now.”