Panther track and field is eyeing the state meet.
For the past few winters, Franklin has boasted two of the state’s top teams, earning the 2022 boys 3A title and three straight top-five finishes from the girls. Now in the newly created 5A classification, the team believes they’ll be right back in the mix.
“I feel like we have, on both sides, the number one team in 5A,” said head coach Matt Harlfinger, now entering his fifth year at the helm. “I would say, absolute worst-case scenario on the girls’ side, we’d have the second best team. It would take a lot for us to be the third best – we’ve got a very realistic shot there on the girls’ side.”
Under the old 3A classification, Franklin consistently punched above their weight, outscoring schools with hundreds more students than them. After the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s quadrennial realignment this year, the Panthers’ state meet competition was cut in half.
“With the reclassification, everything kind of comes back to us a little bit,” said Harlfinger. “I would say the playing field is a little bit more fair in terms of a school with 1,000 kids going against other schools. Last year we were competing against West Charlotte; West Charlotte is an 8A school now – they moved up three classifications. Last year A.C. Reynolds was 4A until they appealed it, and then it was, ‘OK, we’ll drop you back down to 3A,’ and they turned out to be a really good 3A track team. Dudley was kind of the cream of the crop; well, they had 500, 600 more kids than us.”
With last year’s four classifications now divided into eight, most divisions shrunk from more than 100 schools to less than 60, which also lessened disparities between the smallest and largest in each. In the Dash for Doobie at Forsyth Country Day School Nov. 15, one of the state’s premiere distance-running winter kickoff meets, Franklin was already ahead of schedule.
“[Amy Mendoza Lopez] has just been on fire, so she was able to break the school record there,” said Harlfinger of the senior’s 11-minute, 32-second two-mile run. “Morgan Cress was able to run sub-12 [minutes]; I’ll have to double-check that, but it may be the first time in school history we’ve had two girls under 12. Abigail Pope had a big personal best – she ran a 12:42, and I think that was the first time she’d broken 13 minutes. Abby Timan ran 12:43 as a freshman, so that may be the first time in school history that we’ve had four girls under 13.”
Just two weeks after placing third at the 5A state cross country meet, Franklin’s female distance runners were already in midseason form, moving from the fall season’s 5-kilometer race down to 3.2. Four days later they rejoined their teammates for their first full meet of the season at Swain.
“C.J. Engert broke our school record in the high jump,” said Harlfinger. “He cleared 6’4”, which will probably put him in the top two at the state meet in February … but the way that he was jumping at 6’6” really makes me feel like he could probably clear that very soon, and then have some realistic opportunities to jump even higher. Reid Lassiter also broke our school record in the 500 [meter-dash]; that mark right there will probably finish top-three. And then we also have Ken Modlin, who hasn’t run the 500 yet, so there’s a chance that we could finish first and second in the 500.”
With a one-minute, six-second 500-meter dash, Laseter joined Engert in breaking Panther records at Swain, headlining several elite performances throughout the night. Both teams are so talented in fact, that they won’t even show their hands just yet.
“We’ve got some curveballs that we’re going to throw,” said Harlfinger of keeping their 5A foes in the dark. “I can’t tell all the secrets yet, but we’re training a couple kids in events that they’ve never done before, and at practice they look like state champions – we’re going to hold them back until probably January. For the first time ever we did some tryouts, and we had a kid break one of our school records at the tryout. The mark that he jumped at our tryout would have been the number one mark in the state last year, and I said, ‘OK, why have we never done this before?’ So, we’re going to keep this one in our back pocket for a little bit.”