Panther men’s golf is headed to regionals.
At the third and final round of the Mountain Seven Conference Tournament April 25 at Springdale, Ryan Raby’s team met their rivals once again to decide a conference champion. While Franklin lost a hard-fought tournament to Pisgah, they did finish as runners-up to earn a team berth to the 3A West Regional.
After posting scores of 81 in Round 1 and 92 in Round 2, junior Ashton Shope shot Franklin’s low round for the day, good for the sixth-lowest round in the conference.
After leading the Panthers in the first two rounds with a 79 and an 80, promising freshman Tanner Jones had another strong day at Springdale, traversing the championship course in 82 strokes. Just behind Shope and Jones was the final member of Franklin’s “Big Three” in sophomore Max McClure, who shot an 84.
After McClure, junior Cooper Guffie shot his best round of the tournament, knocking two strokes off his Round 1 score of 89 with an 87. Senior Owen Jenkins rounded out Franklin’s scorecard with a 95.
As a team, Franklin’s four lowest scores at Springdale added up to 333, tying Tuscola for the second-lowest on the day behind Pisgah (316). Across all three tournament rounds, Franklin finished with a team score of 1,014, good for second behind Pisgah out of six eligible teams. North Henderson does not have enough golfers for a full team.
As one of the Mountain Seven’s top three squads, Franklin earned a team berth to the 3A West Regional, to be played at Mimosa Hills Country Club in Morganton May 8. The berth is a significant achievement for the Panthers, who did not qualify any players to the regional in 2022.
In helping mold a young Franklin team into conference contenders, Raby was voted M7C Coach of the Year by his peers.
In addition to their head coach, multiple Panthers earned individual honors for their efforts in the conference tournament. With a 241 across all three rounds, Jones turned in the second-lowest score in the conference, finishing just three strokes behind Conference Player of the Year Hank Bradley of Pisgah. Jones, McClure (251) and Shope (253) each placed among the top 14 players in the conference, earning individual All-M7C honors.