No school record is safe from Panther track and field.
Following a near-monthlong Christmas break, on the week of Jan. 5 Franklin made up for lost time, traveling to meets in Swain County and Winston-Salem. With several top statewide marks including four more school records, both Panther teams continued their quests for state titles.
“At that Swain meet, our boys [4x400-meter relay] team ran the fastest time in 5A for this year, so we’re currently ranked number one,” said head coach Matt Harlfinger of the trip to Bryson City Jan. 7. “That was Reid Laseter, Ken Modlin, Siler Kinsland and Conner Ramey, and then our girls four-by-four ran a nine-second season-best mark coming out of the break. That moved us up to third in 5A with Annalee Ledbetter, Mindy Holbrooks, Michelle Ortega and Amy Mendoza-Lopez.”
Already two of the 5A classification’s top teams, Franklin continued to bolster their state meet credentials, shaving precious seconds off their 4x400-meter times. In addition to his established veteran teammates, a promising young Panther enjoyed a coming-out party at Swain.
“Siler Kinsland long-jumped 20 feet and a half-inch at Swain, which moved him up to ... the 17th best long-jumper for freshman boys in the country,” said Harlfinger. “He’s a kid that long-jumped 17 feet last year, and it’s like, ‘Well where in the world did that come from? That’s a three-foot improvement.’ We’re really excited to see what he can do because he has snuck onto both of our relays, the [4x200] and the [4x400]. He has elevated this program as a freshman, and that’s pretty hard to see. It’s few and far between on the boys’ side that a boy freshman comes in and is able to be an impact player, and he’s been able to do that.”
Between the long jump and sprint events, Kinsland has quickly grown into one of the team’s best all-around athletes, joining an already-deep stable of underclassmen talent. Elsewhere around the track, several other Panthers also impressed.
“Diego Lopez cleared 9’6” in the pole vault. Coming into the meet his lifetime best was 7’6”, so he cleared four bars in a row with four personal-bests – that’s pretty unheard of,” said Harlfinger. “We had some really big performances in the shot put with Gage Crawford and Ivan Martinez both throwing over 39 feet, which is the first time they’ve ever done that. And then Lilly Tux threw 34.5 in the shot put, which moved her up at the time, I think, to fourth in the state for 5A. ... Kamden Reis had an indoor personal best of 15’7” in the long jump, which also slid her into, I think, the top eight in the girls long jump for 5A.”
Despite a long Christmas break, Harlfinger said the team hit the ground running in their first meet back, praising his athletes for staying diligent in their workouts. On Jan. 10, they continued their red-hot week at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem.
“We also used that Swain meet as practice, because the JDL meet coming out of Christmas break was one of the bigger ones that we had circled on our calendar for the season,” said Harlfinger. “We absolutely showed out – I’m really proud of where we were and how we were able to compete on Saturday. We broke four school records, which, I don’t know if we’ve ever done that in one track meet.”
“The boys 4x200 team with Gabe Harrison, Ken Modlin, Siler Kinsland and Reid Laseter broke the school record and advanced themselves. They are now number one in the state – we moved from sixth place overall to first place overall, and they broke that record by almost a full second. I wasn’t for sure that they were that fast, and then they run the number one time, and we go back and look at the video and there’s still some areas that we can clean up a little bit on the handoffs. And then obviously we’ve got a couple more weeks to develop speed, so they could really make a run at a title. I didn’t really have that on my bingo card coming into this year, so real proud of that.”
After helping Ramey set a number-one time in the 4x400-meter at Swain, Modlin, Siler and Laseter outdid themselves in Winston-Salem, staking their claim as one of 5A’s best groups of sprinters. On the girls’ side, a pair of seniors also continued historic seasons.
“Michelle Ortega broke the 500-meter record, and that was almost a full second faster than she’d ever run,” said Harlfinger of Franklin’s sprint talisman. “She now has our 300 and 500 records, and she’s dangerously close to that 55 record, so she could walk out of here as the best sprinter that we’ve ever seen. I also didn’t have that on my bingo card – she works hard, and I know that she’s talented, but we have had a slew of very talented sprinters come through here with Hope Smith and Isabel Duchemin and Laura Covarrubias, and Michelle Ortega is putting herself on the Mount Rushmore of Franklin sprinters.”
“And then Amy Mendoza-Lopez had herself a day. She broke the indoor school record in the mile – she ran a 5:11. The outdoor school record is 5:07 so she would be number two outdoors, but she broke our school record in the indoor mile by 10 seconds. Then she took an hour rest and came back and ran the 1,000, and broke her own school record there with a 3:02. She PR’ed [set a personal record] by two seconds, and she competed really well.”
As one of the state’s best thunder-and-lightning sprint/distance duos, Ortega and Mendoza-Lopez continued incredible senior campaigns, outracing top competition from across the state. Elsewhere around the track, several other Panthers grew more accustomed to the 5A state championship venue.
“Outside of that, we had 26 other personal bests,” said Harlfinger. “Gabe Harrison had a big race in the 55-meter dash; he moved up to number two all-time in our school rankings, and then he rolled over right into the next event, the four-by-two. He was the first leg on our four-by-two, and he really put us in a position to run fast. That relay also got first place overall in the meet, and we came out of the slow heat.”
“Jase Rogers moved into the top 10 all-time for the indoor two-mile with a big PR; he was able to break 11 minutes for the first time. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a freshman able to do that, especially indoors. I’m looking at the list here and I know when a majority of these kids ran these times, and it was kind of late in their careers, so Jase Rogers right now may be the best freshman distance runner we’ve had in a long time. You put him with Siler Kinsland, who’s another freshman who’s having a fantastic season, and it really feels like, our freshmen and sophomore group, given two more years together, is going to be a very special group.”
Between trusty veterans and up-and-coming underclassmen, both Franklin teams should compete for state titles for years to come. With some athletes returning from weeks away from the team, Harlfinger praised the Panthers for their work ethic.
“One of the big things that we preached around Dec. 20 was that if we could find a way to come out of Christmas break stronger than we went in, then we would be positioned really well come February when we line it up at the state meet,” he said. We had a pretty solid buy-in from the group this Christmas, and in just the past seven days we’ve blown up the scoreboard and just done really well. It’s been really exciting, and really fun to be part of.”