Rumans breaks FHS, WNC records
Panther softball is nearing the end of the year on a roll.
Having outscored opponents 48-15 in their prior three games, Franklin entered the April 20 week red-hot, with games versus Enka and Smoky Mountain on tap. With three more wins including two in the Mountain Eight Conference, they extended their streak to six with just three games left in the regular season.
On April 20, they hosted Enka at Macon Middle School to rehash their 10-8 win over the Jets March 19. Once again the Jets drew first blood, turning three singles and a walk into a second-inning run.
Franklin answered in the bottom of the third, taking a 3-1 lead off doubles from Alyssa Awtrey and Suzanna Cabe. Enka responded with four singles in the fourth and a home run in the fifth to tie the game.
Franklin sparked a furious two-out rally in the fifth, knocking seven straight hits including a home run from Meliah Mason. Kendall Rumans and Chloe Lambert added doubles to bat around the Panther order for a five-run inning. Enka attempted a comeback with two runs in the top of the seventh, but Franklin stopped the bleeding to cement an 8-5 win.
Having dealt Enka two of the talented Jets’ three losses this year, the Panthers returned to MMS the following night for the first of a two-game Mountain Eight series with Smoky. There Franklin came out swinging early on, plating three first-inning runs off extra-base hits from Awtrey, Cabe and Rumans. Smoky answered with a run in the top of the second.
Taylor Carrion kept Franklin’s offense rolling minutes later, leading off the bottom of the inning with a home run to left field. The sophomore sparked what would become a five-run frame for the Panthers, led by four more hits including another Cabe double.
Franklin’s bats stayed red-hot in the third, plating four more runs off three doubles and an inside-the-park homer from Rumans. She added an RBI double as one of five Panther hits in the fourth, helping her team to a 14-2 win. Freshman Payton Manos looked sharp on the mound for Franklin, holding Smoky to just four hits in a five-inning complete game.
In addition to the results, Franklin’s winning streak has been especially sweet for Rumans, who broke late 2010s legend Haeli Bryson’s team records for career doubles (47) and runs scored (135). The senior had already ranked first in program history for career home runs (38), career RBIs (159) and single-season RBIs (46). With three RBIs against Smoky, she also surpassed late 2000s Murphy legend Brittany Henry for the all-time WNC career record.
“It feels pretty awesome. These past four years with this team and all the opportunities I've had to get all these records have been really great,” said Rumans after the game on her latest two in a long line of program records. “The people before me were super-great, so it's just really great to know that I worked super-hard to achieve those. I didn't come in here trying to break all these records, but it's just really awesome to have my name on all those things. It's just something to show for all the hard work that I've put in for myself.”
As perhaps Panther softball’s greatest-ever hitter, Rumans struggled to think of an offensive record she doesn’t own, eventually settling on the team’s career hits mark. With little more than a week left to play in the regular season, the senior believes the team is hot at the right time.
“We're feeling really good. We obviously had a rough two weeks; we had two conference losses, then we played a non-conference team that was very good,” she said of series with Pisgah and West Stokes earlier this month. “Just to come back after that and be able to focus, and then beating Enka yesterday, was a really big push for us to finish the rest of the season and hopefully go undefeated the rest of the season into the playoffs.”
Three nights later the Panthers traveled to Smoky for Game 2. There they exploded for 15 runs in the first three innings, going on to win 19-2. Rumans, Cabe and Mason all hit home runs in the game, while Ilyssa Ezechel went 4-for-4 with three RBIs. Manos allowed just two hits in a five-inning game on the mound.
The win improved Franklin’s record to 15-6 overall and 8-3 in the Mountain Eight, where they ended the week in third. As the state’s 13th-ranked 5A team, the Panthers looked poised to earn a first-round bye in the classification’s 48-team playoff field.
Upon returning home from Smoky, the Panthers prepared for their last week of the regular season, including a rematch of their 16-1 conference win over East Henderson last month and a two-game Mountain Eight series with West Henderson.