A stellar season is at an end for Panther swim and dive.
After a strong showing at the 3A West Regional, placing fifth in women’s scoring and 12th in the men’s, on Feb. 6 the team traveled to Raleigh for the 3A State Championship. Led by two top-eight finishes from their women’s freestyle relay team, Franklin capped what has become an annual trip to the state title meet.
On Feb. 7, the state’s best 3A divers met at the Pullen Aquatic Center, where sophomore Jonah Brant kicked off the two-day meet for the Panthers. There, Brant earned Franklin’s highest finish of the meet, scoring 303.75 points in the 1-meter dive to place fourth in a six-person field.
The next day, Brant rejoined his teammates at the Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary. There, Franklin’s women’s relays teams turned in an outstanding day, placing seventh in the 200-yard freestyle, eighth in the 400-yard freestyle and ninth in the 200-yard medley.
After breaking a 21-year-old FHS record at the 3A West Regional last week, the 200 medley team of Kate Phillips (backstroke), Claire Ballard (breaststroke), Zoi Walker (butterfly) and Rylee Cassada (freestyle) again improved on the record, shaving five hundredths of a second off their time from 2:02.81 to 2:02.76. Having placed 10th in the preliminary round, the team just missed the eight-team cut for the championship final but swam the fastest time in the consolation final.
In the 200 freestyle relay, Ballard, Walker, Cassada and senior Logan Guynn also set a school record, placing fifth in the preliminaries with a 1:45.65 to shave more than a quarter of a second off their own record from last year. They placed seventh in the championship final with a 1:46.19. The same four swimmers also nearly broke their own school record in the 400, placing eighth in the championship final with a 4:00.68.
In addition to the relay events, Franklin’s women impressed as individuals, with Cassada placing 23rd in the 50 freestyle with a 27.22, and Ballard placing 7th in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:10.92. Ballard’s championship final time broke her own school record from earlier this season, shaving nearly a quarter of a second off her previous mark of 1:11.14. Overall the Panther women placed 11th in team scoring, improving on their 12th-place finish at last year’s state title meet.
On the men’s side, Franklin also brought three relay teams to state, with Brant, senior Jose Gomez and junior Gavin Rinker swimming legs in all three. In the 200 medley, Brant (breaststroke), Gomez (freestyle) and Rinker (butterfly) joined junior backstroker Jack Hyatt to place 24th with a 1:57.88. In the freestyle relays, Brant, Rinker, Gomez and promising freshman Malik Walker placed 19th in the 200 with a 1:40.06 and 17th in the 400 with a 3:45.14. Overall the Panther men placed 29th in team scoring, improving on their 33rd-place finish from last year.
In a sport dominated by schools from areas with year-round facilities, Franklin’s finishes at the state meet continued a remarkable run of success. In their more than two decades of coaching the Panthers, Dwain and Dina Picou’s teams have consistently been among WNC’s best, but the husband-and-wife team were quick to deflect credit for the state meet performance.
“Being one of the few teams who do not swim year-round, it is extremely hard to compete against all the year-round swimmers from Charlotte and Raleigh,” said Dwain. “The FHS swimmers and divers do amazingly well against the tough competition at the regional and state meets.”