Franklin High School Swim and Dive has completed the Mountain Six conference sweep.
At the Mountain Six Conference championship at T.C. Roberson High School Jan. 23, swim teams from around the Mountain Six gathered to test their skills in a conference-wide meet. With first-place scores turned in by both the boys team and the girls team, Franklin claimed Mountain Six supremacy with solid times from throughout the roster.
As winners of the last three conference titles including last year’s, which it claimed without any seniors on the team, Franklin’s boys team entered the meet as the odds-on favorites. Led by senior Michael Frazier, junior Caden Tyler and sophomore Clayton Guynn, the Panthers claimed first place in several events, including the 200-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle (Tyler); 100 breaststroke, 100 butterfly (Guynn); 100 freestyle, and 100 backstroke (Frazier).
With additional blue ribbons from juniors Joseph Vernelson and Hunter Cabe as well as in every relay event, the Panthers cruised to the conference title with 431 points to Hendersonville’s 279. In a Mountain Six championship in which nearly every Panther set personal speed records, Michael Frazier said he was not expecting to be named the meet’s boys Most Valuable Swimmer.
“I was surprised, because I know that a lot of the guys on the team did really good. We all basically did the same thing,” said Frazier on the honor. “It’s a good feeling having both the girls and the boys win, because it hasn’t happened in three years, since I was a freshman.”
In addition to the boys results, FHS’s girls team also took care of business Saturday. The team regained Mountain Six bragging rights for the first time in three years as junior Claire Holland (200 individual medley, 100 breaststroke), sophomore Callie Roper (100 butterfly, 100 backstroke) and freshman Natalie Ballard (50 freestyle, 100 freestyle) each claimed first in multiple events. The girls’ scores were a bit closer than the boys – Franklin beat out Hendersonville 413 to 345 – a fact that head coaches Dwain and Dina Picou said they saw coming before the meet.
“In the girls competition, we felt like we could beat Brevard, Smokey Mountain and Pisgah, who had no girls, but, we knew it would be extremely close against Hendersonville,” said Dwain. “We were third in the conference last year, but we did not lose any graduating seniors, so it felt like we would be stronger this year that last. We discussed how close the meet was going to be with the girls during practice the week before the meet. The girls showed up to the meet motivated to pull off a win. Almost every girl swam their lifetime best times at the meet. … Our girls ended up winning four more individual events than expected plus another relay. All of our girls really had a great night and swam their best meet of the season.”
After completing the Mountain Six Conference sweep, the Panthers will have a week off from competition ahead of the 2-A West Regional meet in Charlotte on Feb. 5-6.
The team then hopes to advance to the state meet in Raleigh Feb. 11-12.