It’s been a busy few days for Panther track and field.
On the week of Jan. 15, the team covered both ends of the competitive spectrum, traveling to Cherokee for a small, regional meet and to Winston-Salem to scope out this year’s state meet venue. After several strong performances, the Panthers had just one more regular-season meet before the Mountain Seven Conference Championship Jan. 27.
On Thursday, Jan. 18, the team crossed the Qualla Boundary for a nine-team meet at Cherokee High School. There, the Panther women placed in nearly every event, led by wins in the pole vault from Boston Stringer (10’9”), the 55-meter hurdles from Laura Covarrubias (8.64 seconds) and the 55-meter dash from Kai Pelletier (7.90 seconds). Pelletier also placed third in the 300-meter dash (47.25), beating out freshman Bailey Callahan (4th, 48.66) by less than two seconds.
In outpacing both the state meet qualifying standard and the school record in the event, Covarrubias punched her ticket in the hurdles to the state meet Feb. 10. The star junior is now qualified in the hurdles, long jump, triple jump and 300-meter dash, and boasts one of the top long jump distances in 3A at 17’5.5”.
“We’re trying her out in the hurdles, and she did a good job last year in the 300 hurdles,” said head coach Matt Harlfinger of the star junior. “She actually ran it at Liberty and it didn’t quite go as planned, and she said, ‘Before we go to [the state meet venue], I’d like to do it one more time.’ So, she goes and breaks the school record that Isabelle Duchemin set last year, and Isabelle is a Division I [collegiate] hurdler. It went from not going well to going really, really well.”
Finishing just behind Pelletier in the 55 dash was senior Rylee Cassada (7.92), who also placed second in the 500-meter dash in 1:23.37. Similarly, senior Talley Kinsland placed second in the 55 hurdles (9.90), sixth in the shot put (25’10”) and tied sophomore Isabella Shope for fourth in the high jump (4’6”). Junior Justus Bradford placed third with a 4’8” leap.
On the men’s side, Franklin also turned in several strong results, led by wins from Jason Mesa in the 300-meter dash (39.58), Adam Rogers in the pole vault (14’1”) and the 4x200-meter relay team (1:46.00). Mesa also placed fourth in the 55-meter dash (7.18).
Rogers led a dominant effort overall in the pole vault, with Aaron Jennings placing second with a 12’9” and David Rogers placing third with an 11’9”. David Rogers also placed second in the high jump with a 5’2” leap.
Similarly to Adam Rogers, Mesa led a pack of Panthers in the 300 dash, with Josiah Sheldon placing second in 40.97 and Aaron Dewhurst placing fourth in 41.98. Placing seventh in the event was sophomore Dylan Monzon, who also placed second in the long jump (16’9”) and sixth in the 55 dash (7.25). Senior Wyatt Cantrell (5th, 7.24) beat Monzon by one hundredth of a second in the 55 dash.
“Rylee Cassada ran a really big PR [personal record] in the 500, and she actually almost hit a qualifying mark,” said Harlfinger. “Adam Rogers set a school record in the pole vault with 14’1”, which broke the [previous] school record by one inch. ... Kai Pelletier won the 55, which is really cool as a freshman to be able to go out there and win. I think there were something like 20 girls in that race, and she’s one that we’re very excited about. As a freshman, she’s running times that are very comparable to where someone like Hope Smith was as a freshman.”
With a state meet qualification and a new school record in hand, on Jan. 20 the team traveled to the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem for for a massive meet at the 3A state meet venue. There, the team matched up incredibly well with other elite teams from across N.C. and beyond.
“That was a big track meet. There were 120 schools represented across all classifications, 1A through 4A, and there were some other states, some [athletes] running unattached, and this and that,” said Harlfinger. “They capped a lot of the events – for example, they only took the top 20 pole vaulters, when there could have been 100 that entered. ... They emailed out the invoice that had every single school on there and said how much each school owed. It was like $13 per athlete and Franklin actually had the highest bill, so for as big of a track meet as that was, we got the most athletes into the meet.”
Up against some of the state’s best programs, Franklin boasted the meet’s largest contingent, qualifying 30 individuals and relay teams in 26 different events. Much like they had earlier in the week, the team’s stars showed why they’re at the top of the 3A rankings.
“Hope Smith ran a 7.41 and broke the school record in the [55-meter dash], and Laura Covarrubias broke her school record from the Cherokee meet in the 55 hurdles, running 8.46,” said Harlfinger. “Barrett Stork qualified in the mile, and he was the only new [state meet] qualifier that we had at the JDL meet. ... Laura broke her school record in the long jump with a 17’7.75”, which ranks her number two in 3A – I think she’s number four in the hurdles and number two in the long jump. Morgan Cress broke her own school record in the two-mile with an 11:47, and she’s a freshman doing things that some seniors can’t do anywhere.”
Including Covarrubias in the 55 hurdles and Stork in the 1,600-meter run (4:38.45), Franklin has now turned in 42 state-qualifying performances this year, ranking near the top of 3A in both men’s and women’s competition. Just weeks after first competing in the ‘short’ hurdles, Covarrubias continued her meteoric rise through the state rankings.
“In my head, I’m like, ‘She’s gotta be faster than what she ran at Liberty,’ and so she goes and runs almost a full second faster and actually ran fast enough to be ranked, I think fifth in the state,” said Harlfinger of the junior’s performance at Cherokee. “So then we go to JDL, and she runs even faster. ... We [raced] Emma Hall from West Henderson who’s like a five-or-six-time state champion in the hurdles and has been hurdling for six years, and Laura’s been hurdling for six weeks. Now they’re neck-and-neck, and it’s like, ‘OK, we’ve got something here.’”
With top-end talent up and down the roster, Franklin should be well-equipped to repeat their stellar 2023 state meet, where the Panther men earned their first-ever indoor state title and the Panther women fell a single point shy to state champions Dudley on a technicality. In addition to their busy slate of meets, the team also took time last week to help some of Macon County’s less fortunate.
“We’ve tried to make them better athletes, obviously, but also make them better people off the track, and the community service is part of that,” said Harlfinger. “We went and did the CareNet project this week packing boxes with food, and I’m assuming they’ve passed that food out and given it to people who needed it. Earlier in the year we did a project where we sent our senior class to the Senior Center and called it ‘Seniors for Seniors,’ and we helped set up, participate in, break down and clean up the Senior Center’s Christmas party. ... I think that meant a lot to some people that maybe weren’t going to have people around for Christmas, and it was a special moment for our seniors.”