Panther women’s track and field is the 3A state runner-up.
After placing first and second, respectively at the 3A West Regional May 11, on May 20 Franklin’s women’s and men’s teams traveled to Greensboro for the state meet. With a second-place overall finish and two school-record performances, the Panther women capped the greatest two-year run in team history.
“I kind of felt like, going into it, that we had a chance to win it, and I told the girls, ‘If we just go do what we’re capable of doing – hit your PR [personal record] at the state meet, or come close to it – we would maybe have a chance at first place,” said head coach Matt Harlfinger. “We were probably more realistically the second-best team, because Dudley is just so good.”
For the past two years, Dudley and Franklin have been the two best women’s teams in 3A, with the Greensboro power claiming four straight state titles dating back to last year’s indoor meet. With a pair of dramatic performances in the last two events of the day, the Panthers claimed their fourth-straight top-four finish in the same span.
“With two events left to go we were 11 points out of second place, and we figured North Buncombe would win the [4x400-meter relay],” said Harlfinger. “I think we were tied with North Bumcombe, and so it came down to the two-mile, where we needed Morgan Cress. I think she was ranked seventh going in, and we needed her to score enough points to where if North Buncombe did win the four-by-four, we could still finish second. Morgan slid from seventh place up to fourth place, which was more points than we were expecting to get. So, that was a huge performance on her part.”
By placing fourth in the two-mile run, Cress became one of just four freshmen in 3A, male or female, to earn a podium finish at Monday’s meet. None finished in the top three of their events.
Armed with five more crucial points from Cress, Franklin entered the last event with an outside shot at second place.
“We kind of figured up the points and said, ‘Well, we’ve got to finish third place. If we finish third place we’ll end up getting second place overall as a team,’” said Harlfinger of the 4x400-meter relay. “But, we were ranked seventh, so it was kind of a stretch. And then, Laura Covarrubias got hurt in the 300 hurdles. She rolled her ankle and so we pulled her from the four-by-four, which, we would have had a lot more confidence going in with Laura running out there for us.”
After tripping over just the second of eight hurdles in the 300, Covarrubias displayed rare grit and toughness, running the last 200 or so meters on an injured ankle and collapsing at the finish line. Despite miraculously placing eighth and giving Franklin a critical point, coaches pulled Covarrubias from the 4x400 in favor of an unlikely teammate.
“Amy Mendoza Lopez stepped up as an alternate, and she might have ran just as fast as Laura – I mean she was on fire,” said Harlfinger of the sophomore, who specializes in longer-distance events. “The girls broke the school record in the four-by-four by five, almost six seconds, which was a record that had stood since 1995. ... So, we ran a lot faster than I thought we were going to, and we were able to get third place in the four-by-four. That solidified finishing second overall.”
In shattering a record that had stood for nearly 30 years, Mendoza Lopez, Rylee Cassada, Audrey Pressley and Hope Smith outperformed their projected finish by four slots, giving Franklin their 40th point to secure a second-place overall finish. In beating out third-place North Buncombe (39) and fourth-place Southern Guilford (38) by the slimmest of margins, every point throughout the day was crucial for the Panthers.
“Boston Stringer finished second place in the pole vault to finish out an outstanding career. She’s a one-time State Champion and a two-time state runner-up,” said Harlfinger. “Charlie Seagle got fourth in the shot put, which, I think she went in ranked 10th or 11th. We were talking last week about how if we could just show up and do what we’re capable of doing, we’d be happy with where we finish. She didn’t have a great regional performance, but she showed up and did what she was supposed to do at the state meet. She finished on the podium, and I think this is the fifth time that she has been All-State in her career.”
“Our girls 4x200 team broke the school record that they had set at the regional meet with Michelle Ortega, Anna Timan, Laura Covarrubias and Hope Smith. ... Justus Bradford was fifth in the high jump and tied her personal record at 5’ 2”. The girls [4x100] team finished sixth overall – they went in ranked ninth, and so they slid up a couple spots. They actually tied their season-best mark, which is the number two time in school history, just off the school record. That was Hope Smith, Michelle Ortega, Audrey Pressley and Anna Timan.”
Between these and other strong performances like Claire Ballard’s seventh-place discus throw and a sixth-place 4x800-meter relay from Cress, Mendoza Lopez, Mindi Holbrooks and Abigail Pope, the Panther women claimed their second state runner-up finish of the past two years. As one of the meet’s top two teams, Franklin also was entitled to nominate an athlete for the N.C. High School Athletic Association Sportsmanship Award.
“We had decided going in that if we got first or second place, we wanted to reward Rylee Cassada just for being a first-class human. It was really exciting to watch her receive that award,” said Harlfinger. “It was a funny story – so with two events left, they usually call down the head coaches to tell them who their nominee is gonna be just in case they finish first or second, and we didn’t get called down there. That’s how far out of it we were with two or three events left, and then Laura scored a point in the 300 hurdles, Morgan scored five in the two-mile, and we picked up six more on the four-by-four. [Co-head coach and distance running specialist Melissa Ward] had to walk over to the meet director and say, ‘Hey, you guys didn’t call us down here; let me tell you who our nominee is,’ so it kind of got awkward there.”
In helping Franklin place third in the 4x400 and therefore second overall, Cassada reaped the fruits of her own labor in multiple ways. On the men’s side, the reigning indoor state runners-up fell back to Earth.
“On the boys side, we knew going in that we hadn’t done enough at the regional meet to have a chance at a team title,” said Harlfinger of the 3A West Regional May 11, the sole qualifying event for the state meet. “Aaron Jennings took second place in the pole vault, which was probably our brightest spot there. Justin Rodriguez finished seventh in the 400, our four-by-four team finished seventh with Ken Modlin, Justin Rodriguez, Barrett Stork and Elijah Cochran, and then our boys four-by-eight team got eighth place with Cooper Tyler, Matheson Post, Barrett Stork and Logan Russo. Those were the only four events we scored in, so we ended up scoring 13 points and got 17th place.”
After winning 3A state titles last year in both the indoor and outdoor seasons, and a second-place finish at this year’s indoor state meet in February, Monday served as a dose of reality for Franklin’s men. In being reminded just how hard it is to win state, at least one returning athlete said the result would fuel him through the offseason.
“Even before we left we were kind of packing up our team camp, and one of the boys looked at me and said, ‘Well, this is embarrassing,’” said Harlfinger. “I said, ‘What’s embarrassing?’ and he said, ‘This isn’t the standard of our program. We’re one of the top teams in the state and we just got 17th place. We got our butt kicked.’ I said, ‘Well, yeah; let’s not let it happen again next year.’ You could tell from the boys that we’ve got coming back, it affected them in a way where I think they’re ready to get back to work and never feel that way again, because we’re not a 17th-place team.”