The good times keep rolling for Panther softball.
On the week of April 15 Franklin faced a busy slate of games, including Mountain Seven contests with Tuscola, North Henderson and Pisgah. In a narrow loss to North and wins over Pisgah and Tuscola, they improved their record to 11-2 with just five games left to play.
On Tuesday, April 16 the Panthers traveled to Tuscola to rehash their 20-10 rout of the Mountaineers March 14. There they once again overwhelmed the Mounties’ defense, posting 12 hits en route to a 13-5 win. Kendall Rumans and Avery Moffitt belted two home runs apiece, including a Rumans grand slam in a seven-run fourth. On defense the sophomore pitched a complete game of three-hit, 11-strikeout ball.
The next night, the team traveled to North Henderson for their first conference game with the Knights. There, head coach Bobby Bishop said the Panthers had an off night.
“That’s the worst game we’ve played this entire season, and some of it was just bad luck. We had the bases loaded twice with one out, and hit into two double plays,” said the skipper of the trip to Hendersonville. “We didn’t hit as good as we should have, and it seemed like we hit a ton of balls right off the end of the bat, or we were trying to pull them and by trying to pull something slow, we hit the ground. Between third [base] and shortstop, I bet the two of them had 12 putouts, and we probably only hit four balls in the outfield.”
Over the past decade-plus, several stellar Panther teams have played hard-fought games at North, often faring much better at home than they did in Hendersonville. Ahead of a rematch at Macon Middle School April 23, Bishop said the team would be ready to avenge their loss.
“My oldest daughter started playing, which would have been 16 years ago, and a couple of times we’ve went to North and just killed them,” he said. “But now, we’ve had some good teams go over there and have to win a game 5-2 or something like that. It’s just something about that place that’s negative - I don’t know what it is. I just got through telling them that Tuesday night when we play them here, I want us to beat the brakes off of them.”
Two nights later, the team returned to MMS for a clash with Pisgah, a rematch of their nine-run win over the Black Bears March 19. In front of Franklin’s largest crowd of the season, Pisgah gave the home fans an early scare, loading the bases with two walks and a single and cashing in on a catcher’s interference. The Panthers quickly stopped the bleeding however, ending the inning with a strikeout from Rumans and a difficult catch at first base from Meyaeh Tran.
Sophomore Ashlyn McConnell answered quickly in the top of the inning, leading off with a double, advancing to third on a fly ball out, and scoring on a ground ball out to tie the contest 1-1.
After a 1-2-3 third on the mound, Rumans lifted Franklin’s offense later in the inning, launching a solo home run to right field. The sophomore protected her lead with more 1-2-3 innings in the fifth and sixth.
In the bottom of the sixth Rumans tacked onto the lead again, leading off the inning with another solo shot to right. Moffitt then singled on the next at-bat, advanced to third on two ground ball outs and scored on a single from Delaney Stiles to make it 4-1.
Pisgah mounted a dangerous two-out rally in the seventh, placing runners on second and third by way of an error and a double. Rumans stayed cool under pressure however, drawing a weak comebacker to the mound to cap her second complete game of the week.
“I knew she was throwing outside, because last time we played them she threw me a lot of outside,” said Rumans of her third and fourth home runs of the week and 10th and 11th of the season. “In my at-bat before that she threw me all outside, so I was sitting on the outside just focusing on trying to drive it to right field. … It feels great to get another conference win. It was a little closer this time, but we still won.”
“I wasn’t sure if we were gonna get enough hits, but we came through there at the end,” said Bishop of Franklin’s sixth-inning offense. “We got another home run, moved the runner up with a bunt and Delaney came up with a big two-out hit. That’s what you’ve got to do- you’ve got to have two-out hits. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do when you get [a runner] to second, but that’s the way it has to be done.”
With wins over Pisgah and Tuscola, Franklin improved their Mountain Seven record to 7-2, good for second place in the conference behind 8-0 West Henderson. The Panthers ended the week as the 10th-ranked team in the 3A West, with West Henderson ranked #8 and Pisgah ranked #14. Individually, Rumans’ season has been even more impressive, ranking 29th nationwide in slugging percentage (1.644) per the CBS affiliate MaxPreps.