Panther cross country have their sights set on another conference title.
At the Mountain Seven Pre-Conference meet in Hendersonville Oct. 4, the conference gathered at the city’s Jackson Park for a kind of dress rehearsal. Ahead of the actual championship at the same venue Oct. 17, Franklin nearly swept their rivals in team scoring.
“It went well,” said head coach Melissa Ward of Franklin’s evening. “The girls ran first, and Amy [Mendoza Lopez] went out and took the lead within the first mile. She held it for the entire meet, which was pretty good. She was in front of two of Tuscola’s sub-20 [minute] girls and they gave her a little competition, but she PR’ed [set a personal record] with a 20:17. … We had quite a few girls PR, which is pretty good, because it wasn’t exactly a fast course. That’s a good sign for what’s to come at conference in two weeks.”
In addition to Mendoza Lopez, several other female Panthers impressed, led by Mindi Holbrooks finishing third out of 60 in 20:43.02. Morgan Cress and Abigail Pope also finished among the top 10, placing back-to-back in sixth and seventh with a 21:42.17 and a 21:43.03.
After Pope, senior Rylee Cassada was the fifth Panther across the line, finishing 17th with a 23:30.32. Briseida Tlahuice-Flores and Anna Timan rounded out the top seven, also placing back-to-back (21st and 22nd) in 24:55.73 and 25:31.33. A whopping 12 other Panthers also competed in the race, led by Breanna Pendergrass (24th), Lilly Cassada (26th) and Zoe Kettler (27th).
As a team, Franklin earned 32 points in women’s scoring, falling narrowly to Tuscola (29) for second place. On the men’s side, Franklin dominated the top of the leaderboard.
“There were a few boys that were sitting out, due to injury or just preserving them, so Logan [Russo] and Barrett [Stork] didn’t have any competition,” said Ward. “They came to me and said, ‘Should we maybe do a tempo?’ [a training run at a slightly slower pace than a runner’s PR] I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do a tempo instead of pushing it all-out,’ since they did so much at Asics [in Fairburn, Georgia, Sept. 30]. … Logan went ahead and let Barrett take the win, which was sweet, and Matheson [Post] was the third guy in behind them.”
With times ranging from 17:03.21 to 17:26.78, Stork, Russo and Post placed first, second and third out of 65. Hot on the trio’s heels was Cooper Tyler in sixth with an 18:25.37, while Dane Hooper also earned a top-10 finish, earning ninth (18:36.77).
After Hooper, David Rogers was the sixth Panther across the line, placing 25th with a 20:36.46. Jonas Phillips rounded out Franklin’s top seven in 32nd (21:08.69).
As a team, Franklin easily won the overall men’s scoring, earning 19 points to second-place Smoky Mountain’s 73.
While nearly winning both races served as a confidence boost for Franklin, Ward said the team’s biggest goal at the meet was to scope out the conference meet venue. For a large group of underclassmen who had never run the course before, the experience of knowing its twists and turns will come in handy.
“It’s got fast parts, and it’s got some hills in it, so more of a true cross country course, I guess you could say,” said Ward. “I wanted them to have an idea of how to tackle it when it comes to conference. … I think everybody, especially some of the younger girls, they’ve got an idea of how to go in with the course and who they can work on picking off as far as trying to get a better placement and all that. We’ll just have to see who shows up on conference day, and who’s healthy.”
After a strong showing at the pre-conference meet, on Oct. 11 the Panthers will head to Tuscola for their last regular-season meet. They’ll return to Jackson Park for the Mountain Seven Championship Oct. 17.