<strong>F</strong>ranklin’s boys basketball team hadn’t won an outright Mid-State Conference title in 30 years, and this young group of Grizzly Cubs wasn’t supposed to be the team to end that drought.
They never got the memo.
Riding a combination of grit, big outside shots and offensive balance, Franklin completed a perfect run through its league schedule Friday night with a 47-40 triumph over Plainfield in its final home game of the season.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“You can’t write it better than that,” senior forward Hunter Gross said. “Outright conference title, first time in (30) years, it’s a pretty special moment.”
Franklin head coach Brad Dickey was particularly proud of his three seniors — Gross, Jacob Rockey and Tyler Craft — for putting together a 6-0 league mark.
“They’re studs, man,” Dickey said. “They did a great job.”
The Grizzly Cubs (13-7) struggled a bit early with Plainfield’s length inside, and the Quakers took an early 8-2 lead before the home club began to battle back. Blaine Wentzell hit a 3-pointer to help get Franklin untracked, and the sophomore guard made two more in the second quarter to help create a 20-16 advantage by the break.
Still up throughout the third quarter, Franklin stretched its lead to seven, 35-28, on a Cory Richards 3 with 5:42 remaining. Plainfield (13-8) responded, getting back to within a pair on three different occasions in the last 4:46, but Jacob Rockey came up with some key plays late to keep the visitors at bay. First, the senior guard converted a short putback jumper to make it 40-36 at the 2:53 mark, and after the Quakers scored and forced a turnover, Rockey came up with a steal and a layup to push it to 42-38 with just over a minute to go.
Franklin was able to seal the deal with some late free throws.
Plainfield’s 6-foot-10 center, Gavin Bizeau, managed a game-high 16 points, but Franklin held 6-foot-7 Connor Brens to just two points and effectively battled the Quakers to a standstill inside.
“We practice situations, especially with our lack of size,” said Gross, who finished with nine points and blocked a pair of shots. Every day in practice, we do drills to help, guards help down on bigs, stop penetration, stuff like that. It ended up working today.”
Thomson came off the bench and paced a balanced Grizzly Cubs attack with 10 points, eight of those coming in the fourth quarter. Gross and Wentzell each had nine.
