Franklin College coach Jess Darmelio, center, celebrates with her team after a comeback win over Rose-Hulman in an HCAC tournament quarterfinal on Sunday.
Submitted photo | Angie Palmer Photography
Franklin College’s season could have gone off the rails pretty early on. In previous years, it probably would have.
But not this time.
During the Grizzlies’ HCAC opener on Dec. 2, visiting Anderson came in and put Franklin in a 48-23 hole midway through the second quarter. Deficits that big can easily make a team call it a day and move on to the next game, but the Grizzlies refused to pack it in. They got to within 17 by halftime and had stormed all the way back to tie it by the end of the third quarter.
When it was all over, Franklin College had a 92-87 victory — one that inspired the wave of confidence that the team has since surfed to a 17-win season and a place in the conference tournament semifinal.
“It’s just the grit and integrity of the fact that we want to win, and keep going because we know that we can,” sophomore guard Jordan Coon said.
That grit served the Grizzlies well yet again on Sunday. Trailing Rose-Hulman 67-62 with less than two minutes to go in their HCAC tournament quarterfinal clash, Franklin finished on an 11-2 run, scoring the last eight points of the game on the way to a 73-69 victory.
The go-ahead bucket came when freshman Payton Seay snatched an offensive rebound (after getting her own initial shot blocked, no less) and kicked it out to junior transfer Brooke Grinstead for a corner 3 — her second in a row — with 34 seconds left. Coon, who scored a career-high 32 points, then iced it with a pair of late foul shots.
It’s exactly the type of game that recent Grizzly teams had generally let slip away during a pair of sub-.500 seasons. But second-year coach Jess Darmelio has changed the makeup of the roster since her arrival and fostered a new attitude in the process.
“We brought in some kids who are used to winning, who expect to win, and I think that has just kind of inspired that within our whole team,” Darmelio said on Monday. “We were down five last night with two minutes to go, and we might have last year lost by 10 or 15 just because we … just didn’t have the fight to come back. And last night, it was kind of the opposite. You could just see the confidence that hey, we know we can make shots, we know we can move the ball, we can work together, and that’s exactly what ended up winning us the game.”
“We know that we can do it,” Coon added. “We just have to find the people that are going to fight to be on the floor and have the best chemistry at that point, and I think we accomplished that last night.”
The Grizzlies came up with a list of goals before the season, and with each one that’s gotten checked off has come more certainty that they’re on the right path. Darmelio came into the winter looking to establish a clear up-tempo identity on the floor, and each passing win has further solidified the belief that the program is on the right track.
At 17-9, Franklin has already won more games than it did in the previous two seasons combined.
The key, Coon says, has been getting out in transition.
“Running up the floor, getting fast breaks, beating the players to the spot,” she explained. “Our practices are a lot of running and transition type drills, so (Darmelio) really just wants us to get up and down the floor. That’s kind of where our energy comes from, too; it’s a lot of up-and-down play. And we have fast players — our posts are fast, our guards are fast. I think we’re all around a fast team, and that kind of gets our energy going.”
The Grizzlies will need that energy on Friday when they travel to face Transylvania, which is not only the top team in the conference but also the reigning NCAA Division III national champion.
The Pioneers handily defeated Franklin in the two regular-season meetings, 73-46 and 88-47 — but Darmelio is confident that her team will put up more of a fight the third time around. The key to keeping it close, she says, will be hitting shots. That part can’t be determined ahead of time, but the coach can be sure about one thing.
“My kids are going to come out and compete,” Darmelio said. “We’re playing the No. 2 team in the country, on a 58-game win streak right now, but there’s no way they’re going to lay down and die before it starts. … I’m excited to go out and compete with them on Friday and just see what we can do.”
