Another year is in the books for Panther softball.
Having ended the regular season as the 13th-ranked team in the 3A West, on Tuesday, May 7 Franklin began their state playoff journey. In a narrow loss to #20 North Iredell, the team brought their 2024 campaign to a close.
By way of a 15-3 record overall, Franklin earned the right to host the 14-6 Raiders, who placed third in the difficult Western Foothills Conference. There the Panthers’ defense was on full display in the first, with an impressive strikeout on the mound from Kendall Rumans and a beautiful catch by Avery Moffitt in center field. They stayed just as sharp in the top of second, getting a 1-4-3 double play and another great catch by Delaney Stiles in left.
The game remained a defensive battle until the fifth, when sophomore Ashlyn McConnell sparked Franklin’s offense with a two-out double. Rumans drove McConnell in with a standup triple moments later, which came inches shy of clearing the outfield wall.
Iredell answered in the top of the sixth, tying the game with a walk, a stolen base and a single. On the next at-bat a Raider launched a ball to the yellow line, which bounced off the tip of Moffitt’s glove and over the wall. Luckily for Franklin the home run only counted as a solo shot, as they’d caught the lead runner stealing moments before.
Junior Jozy Dehart led off the bottom of the seventh with a single, advancing to second on a groundball out from freshman Layla Maloy. Despite a McConnell walk to put two runners on, Franklin couldn’t drive Dehart in and fell 2-1.
But for a few inches on Rumans’ fifth-inning triple and/or Iredell’s sixth-inning homer, the game might still have been tied, or even ended with Franklin ahead. The loss came after seven stellar innings of four-hit, five-strikeout ball from Rumans, illustrating the razor-thin line between victory and defeat.
“East Lincoln won the whole thing last year, and they play in the same conference, so they probably play very good competition,” said head coach Bobby Bishop of the talented Raiders, who may have been under-ranked due to their difficult schedule. “Especially with the six seniors – I’ve been with them for four years – I told them, ‘You’ve got nothing to hang your head about. You’ve had a great year, you’ve had a great couple of years. For some reason it just didn’t work out.’”