The regular season is underway for Panther men’s soccer.
After months of offseason workouts and practice, on the week of Aug. 12 Franklin kicked off their regular season with two nonconference matches versus WNC rivals. In a blowout win over Highlands and a narrow loss to Hendersonville, Matt Kolodzik’s team continued to round into midseason form.
On Monday, Aug. 12, the first official day of the regular season, Franklin welcomed Highlands to the Panther Pit for a match with their cross-county rivals. In a rematch of two blowout Panther wins last fall, Franklin wasted little time pressuring the Highlanders in the Panther Pit, with senior Ian Camacho-Mendoza winning a “50-50” ball just two minutes in. Camacho-Mendoza passed to sophomore Kevin Torres inside the Highlands half, and Torres beat Highlands goalkeeper Chase Kenter to the left for the game’s first goal.
Highlands repelled several more Panther attacks in the next 18 minutes, until Franklin won a free kick deep inside the Highlands half in the 21st minute. There Camacho-Mendoza assisted Torres again, finding the sophomore just feet from Highlands’ goal with an excellent cross.
From there Franklin opened the floodgates with a flurry of goals in the next 10 minutes, including another from Torres, one from sophomore Salvador Rios and two from junior Greg Karcher. Karcher could have easily scored four goals in the half, after an earlier shot hit the right goalpost and another required an excellent save from Kenter.
Seconds after Rios’s goal put Franklin up 6-0, Aniah McKim answered for Highlands, knifing through the right side of Franklin’s defense and finding the net. With six minutes left in the half McKim outdid himself, again breaking free of Panther defenders up the right sideline. Seeing Franklin’s keeper off his line, McKim struck a beautiful shot from 30 yards over the keeper’s head and into the goal.
Franklin responded in the final minute of the half, when Karcher found senior Graham Caldwell inside Highlands’ 18-yard box with a throw-in. Caldwell found the top left corner of the net to give the Panthers a 7-2 halftime lead.
Franklin stayed hot after the break, getting goals from Karcher and senior Josiah Mascorro in the second half’s first five minutes. Mascorro found the net again nine minutes later with a shot to the top left corner.
With 20 minutes to play junior Cristian Vasquez won the ball deep inside the Highlands half, and found the net with an excellent shot to the lower right corner from 25 yards. With Franklin’s lead at 11-2, officials ended the match by way of the nine-goal mercy rule.
Torres and Karcher led all Panthers with three goals apiece on the day, with Mascorro contributing two and Caldwell, Rios and Vasquez adding one apiece. Camacho-Mendoza looked sharp as a midfield distributor with four assists on the day, while Torres, Karcher and Mascorro added one apiece.
After dismantling Highlands, two nights later the team traveled to Hendersonville for another non-conference match. There the Panthers were noticeably shorthanded.
“We were down a couple players – Miguel Cruz was actually injured in the Highlands game. He’s one of our starters, and a pretty key cog at attacking mid[field],” said Kolodzik. “We were also without Kevin Torres. Kevin started out as one of our leading scorers, and unfortunately had to be out of town. During the match we lost two other starters [wing backs Alex Trivett and Eberardo Rios] to injury, so we had to sub some guys in. Everybody played well, and I thought we actually had some good possession.”
With several key starters missing and several other young players in key roles, the Panthers faced an uphill climb in Hendersonville. Despite a goal from senior Jason Patino and several other quality shots, Franklin couldn’t match the Bearcats and suffered their first loss of the season.
“I felt like we were on-level with them, and there wasn’t a score until later on in the first half [when Hendersonville scored to go up] 1-0,” said Kolodzik. “We came out and played well, but they got a quick one in the beginning of the second half, and we actually got one back and made it 2-1. They shot from distance with about 10 minutes left in the match to go up 3-1. … Two of the goals that Henderson scored on us were from distance, and what happened was we were kind of sitting back a little bit more compact, and did not close out to a couple of their shots. When you kick it from distance you’ve got to have a perfect strike, and two of those were perfect strikes, so that was the difference in the game.”
After losing senior defenders Aaron Jennings, Jaydon Pevia and David Rubio to graduation this summer, injuries to their two starting wing backs were the last thing Franklin’s young back line needed. With a roster full of talented players however, Kolodzik says this year’s team is prepared to handle such a case.
“Those are injuries that shouldn’t be long-term, and ones that they should be able to come back from,” said Kolodzik of Trivett’s hamstring and Rios’s ankle. “Injuries are just going to be part of the season, and when you lose over a third of your starters that’s never a great thing, but I’m not making excuses for our team. These guys know that at any moment they can become a starter, and at any moment may need to step up and make sure we don’t lose any of the energy or the level that we’ve had. … I feel like depth-wise, we’re deeper than most any team that I can remember as far as just being able to go down the bench and say, ‘OK, here we go – I can plug you in here and we’re in good shape.’”