By J.D. Neiswanger
For the Daily Journal
BLOOMINGTON
Franklin was up for the challenge Saturday against Class 4A No. 6 Castle. Pat Carlson’s team had been here just last year, falling to the Knights in a regional match, and had revenge on its mind.
A first-set win that made it feel like the upset was within sight, but the Grizzly Cubs (27-4) just couldn’t keep the very talented and very tall Knights down, suffering a 21-25, 25-15, 25-19, 25-18 defeat.
“We could do certain things against them, but they are a head taller than us at almost every position,” Carlson said. “Our right side played really well; we just had trouble with their length.”
The first set started with Castle (31-3) taking a 2-0 lead, but Franklin came back to go up 8-3 before the Knights called timeout to regroup. Grizzly Cub junior Rose Mahin led the charge with four kills and an ace in that early stretch. The rest of the set saw Castle come back to tie it at 13-13 before Franklin rose up again to win the set — the first set Castle had dropped since Oct. 2.
Franklin (27-4) had a set streak of its own going into the second, having won 11 straight, but Castle’s height and experience began to chip away. The Knights tipped and dinked the whole match and took the next three to end the match.
“They are just so talented, so big, so long, so athletic,” Carlson said. “They have been to the state finals; they don’t get rattled, they don’t panic and they’ve got a lot of seniors and experience along with four or five Division I athletes.”
Franklin was never too far way from Castle in those last three sets, but just couldn’t put another streak of points together like it did in the first set. There were solid performances from a few seniors and underclassmen. Mahin, who earlier this month notched her 1,000th kill, led Franklin with 16 kills on the day. Another junior, Addie Martin, added 11 kills, including nine in the fourth set to keep the Cubs in it until the end. Sophomore Karlin Burton had 32 assists.
“We had a lot of kids play well,” Carlson said. “Our seniors are just great and even better people.”
Another stellar season for Franklin came to an end; the only four losses in its 27-4 campaign came against teams that are in the semistate. The Grizzly Cubs entered 2024 with expectations a little lower due to a large senior class leaving last year, but this year’s edition pleased their coach.
“We won our own invitational, the LaPorte invite, our conference and our sectional and fought our guts out here today,” Carlson said. “I don’t know what more anyone could ask for.”
