At the beginning of the high school boys golf season, Franklin co-coaches Ted Bishop and Crystal Morse asked their players to put together a list of goals for the spring. At the top of the list was making the state finals as a team — something the Grizzly Cubs hadn’t done since 1986.
Bishop and Morse laughed, and why not? Aside from No. 1 player Damon Dickey, no one else on the team had regularly played in summer tournaments, which has traditionally been a virtual prerequisite for success at the state level.
And yet here we are, with Dickey and an unsung but vital supporting cast having steered Franklin to its first state appearance in 35 years with a third-place showing at a loaded Providence Regional last Thursday.
“They showed us,” Bishop said of his team. “In the end, they did it.”
Dickey, of course, was a known quantity coming into 2021. He qualified for state as an individual his sophomore year, won the Indiana Junior Golf Championship last summer and signed a letter of intent to start playing collegiately at Butler this fall. But the rest of the Grizzly Cubs’ lineup had never consistently put it all together … until they did.
Heading into a regional that featured six of the top 19 teams in the final coaches’ poll, Franklin faced an uphill climb but managed to secure the final state qualifying spot with a team score of 307 — two shots better than fourth-place Floyd Central.
Where did those two strokes — or three if you consider that the Highlanders would have beaten the Grizzly Cubs on the fifth-score tiebreak — come from? Dickey’s round of 69, which earned him medalist honors for the fifth time in his last five tournaments, certainly helped, but that wouldn’t have been enough on its own.
Franklin needed others to rise to the occasion, and they rose.
Ian McCullough, who had put a couple of shots out of bounds earlier in his round, holed out from the fairway on his final hole of the day for an eagle 2, capping off a round of 79.
Even a par there would have ended the Grizzly Cubs’ season.
And Will McGuinness — whose spot in the lineup was in jeopardy as recently as late May — came through with a lifetime-best 76.
Without either of them, Franklin was cooked. Instead, the train just kept on chugging away en route to the opening round of state today at Prairie View Golf Club in Carmel.
“It’s just been a phenomenal run that these guys have been on,” Bishop said. “They’ve changed their legacy as a Franklin team here in the last 10 days. As a coach in any sport, you always hope that your players are playing their absolute best when the tournament rolls around, and that’s what happened to these guys.”
The hot streak began with a somewhat surprising victory over Center Grove at the Johnson County tournament. That win provided affirmation that the Grizzly Cubs didn’t need to both play well and hope that the opposition had a bad day. Rather, if Franklin played well, it was capable of beating top-tier teams regardless.
“That was kind of a barrier with our team; we’ve never really been able to do that,” Dickey said. “So to see a bunch of guys who maybe had been struggling with their game a little bit kind of put one together and see that, ‘Wow, we really are that good and we deserve what we’re getting.'”
The Grizzly Cubs finished behind the Trojans at the sectional and regional, but they still played well enough in both to advance forward and achieve that goal that the coaches had scoffed at just a few weeks ago.
Now, they’re one of the last 15 teams standing — and talking like a group that’s coming into today playing with house money and ready to play relaxed, confident golf.
“You never know what could happen,” Bishop said, “but we couldn’t be any happier to be there and break that drought, and we’ll just try to go up there and soak it all in and enjoy it all, have some fun and see where we finish.”
Dickey, who is 25 under par through his last 155 holes and -6 overall for the season, is very much on the short list of players who are capable of winning an individual state championship this season. But as much as doing so would mean to him, he’s just as proud of what making it this far with all of his teammates means in the context of Franklin’s overall golf history.
The Grizzly Cubs came close to reaching state a few times during their long drought, perhaps with teams that were more talented on paper than this one. Dickey recalls the team falling two strokes short when he was a freshman, and he’s made the solo ride to Prairie View before — so he’s going to fully appreciate the company on those bus rides up north today and Wednesday.
“It’s just a really proud feeling to know that I grew up with these guys, and we’ve all been trying to help each other this whole time,” Dickey said. “To know that your group of guys was the one that figured it out, it’s just an amazing feeling.”
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IHSAA state finals
When: Today and Wednesday, 8 a.m.
Where: Prairie View GC, Carmel
Participating teams: Center Grove, Franklin, Avon, Bloomington South, Brebeuf Jesuit, Carmel, Cathedral, Columbia City, Evansville North, Fishers, Fort Wayne Dwenger, Guerin Catholic, Hamilton Southeastern, Penn, Zionsville
Admission: $12 (good for both days; must be purchased online in advance)
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Top teams (based on regional score to par): Center Grove (+7), Guerin Catholic (+8), Carmel (+9), Fort Wayne Dwenger (+10), Bloomington South (+12), Cathedral (+13), Columbia City (+14), Evansville North and Franklin (+19), Brebeuf (+20)
Players to watch: Sam Slaughter, Sam Hord and Brandon Heffner, Center Grove; Damon Dickey, Franklin; Joe Armfield, Carmel; Ryan Ford, Cathedral; Reilly Bries, Evansville North; Connor McNeely, Guerin Catholic
Outlook: The top three teams through most of the season in the state rankings, Carmel, Center Grove and Guerin Catholic again separated themselves last week with the top regional performances. Those three are expected to be the top contenders for the team title come Wednesday afternoon, though there are a handful of other teams capable of crashing those final second-round groupings. The Trojans may not have an individual star capable of medaling this week, but their superior depth should keep them in contention. Franklin, meanwhile, also hopes to crack the top half of the team standings — and the way Dickey has been playing this postseason, he’s certainly capable of becoming Johnson County’s third individual state champion.
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