Grizzlies Week 8 Review | Soccer, tennis finish up fall schedules, while football loses in shutout | Opinion

Disclaimer: As a Franklin College student and member of the cross country team, I am obviously biased. If that’s a problem, go read a different Weekly Roundup of FC Athletic events.

Dear boys and ghouls,

Its almost Halloween and Im hoping Ill get done with this Quicker if 1) I have a theme to work off of and 2) I eat a whole bunch of candy while writing.

So expect a few scarily bad Halloween puns does using the word scarily count as a Halloween pun? and just, in general, a lot of phoning it in.

Last fall match for Women’s tennis is a 5-4 win

Franklin’s contest against Johnson University can be explained like a child’s loot post-trick-or-treating: a mixed bag of results, but overall enjoyable. There were some big wins (Butterfinger, 100 Grand, PayDay), close victories (Crunch, M&Ms), and losses (Junior Mints, Twizzlers).

The Grizzlies Lone win at doubles came from senior Kinley Harmon and freshman Brenna Atchison in the No. 3 positions. At No. 5 and No. 6 singles, freshman Bethany Burton and junior Samantha Schick each had to go into third sets before coming away victorious.

Freshman Emma Back, at No. 3 singles, and junior Maecee Terhune, at No. 4 singles, had dominant wins, with Terhune going 6-0 and 6-1 in her sets.

Football loses to Rose-Hulman 49-0, 3-1 in conference

Franklin got shut out for the first time since 2011, a year that included the deaths of Steve Jobs, Kim Jong-il and my dreams of playing in the NBA. (A lot of third graders had growth spurts and I wasn’t one of them.)

With two touchdowns coming from a punt return and an interception, the Grizzly defense was not responsible for all 49 points. They had their flashes forcing a turnover-on-downs inside the 5-yard line on one drive and a three-and-out on another but also gave up big plays, including three touchdown passes of 25 yards or more.

The two teams got front row seats to bad special teams play, as both had punts blocked, Franklin gave up two long punt returns (including the aforementioned punt return TD), and Rose missed two field goals.

Now, I don’t need to tell you the Grizzlies couldn’t get anything going offensively because that’s easy enough to deduce from the score. Sophomore QB Kai Ross completed only nine of his 35 passes for 67 yards, as the Fightin Engineers secondary dominated while schemed blitzes often left the Grizzly o-line struggling. Ross also threw three interceptions but one wasn’t his fault. Sophomore RB Garrett Cora had a solid day: 99 yards on 24 rushes.

Next up is a road game against Manchester, the last team in the bottom half of the conference that Franklin hasn’t played yet so the Grizzlies should have the classic Get Right Game. Franklin scored three straight touchdowns to open both his games against Anderson and Defiance, and it could totally happen again.

Volleyball lost 3-1 to Hanover, eliminated from Playoffs with one game remaining

The Grizzlies won the first set, taking a 19-7 lead and holding off a Panther comeback 25-23. Then, the two teams traded back and Forth until Hanover grabbed the second set.

If there was ever a chance Franklin was going to deliver some magic on Senior Day and keep his postseason dream alive, it went away during the third set.

When the Grizzlies scored their ninth point, it was 11-9. When they scored their tenth point, it was 24-10 and a 13-point stretch was interrupted only by Franklin head Coach Randi Garrett subbing in players.

Senior Billie Jarrett led both teams in assists with 23, and also had 11 digs. Sophomore Miranda Wilson had 11 kills and freshmen Campbell Clark recorded 18 digs.

On Saturday, the Grizzlies will play Defiance, the only HCAC team without a conference win. And because Defiance has lost 3-0 to every .500-or-better conference team and 3-1 to the ones with losing records, Im going to guess they keep the trend going. Franklin wins 3-1. [insert your own Halloween pun here.]

Women’s soccer gets their first conference win, last conference lost

Franklin scored all his goals in the second half to win 3-0 and leave Defiance as the last remaining HCAC team not to win a conference match.

Despite zeroes on the scoreboard at halftime, it was evident from the beginning that Franklin was the better team. The ball spent a lot of time on the Grizzlies Offensive half they just never connected on their 16 shots.

When Franklin did score, it came by way of Seniors Elaina Page and Lilly Haines and sophomore Maddison Claybrooke. Defiance only took one Shota header that went wide left. Sophomore goalie Makenna Mundy had to do so little, they could have hung up a couple of those life-size skeleton decorations from the crossbar and would have still won.

Mundy was busier on Wednesday, facing 18 shots on goal in a 5-0 loss to Transylvania. The score was 3-0 nine minutes in. Haines, in her last game, tried to help Franklin keep up offensively, shooting on target five times a career high but none found the back of the net.

Mens soccer loses to bad team, ties good team

The Grizzlies played Defiance Saturday and gave them their second win of the season, 2-1. The teams were evenly matched statistically and Franklin took a 1-0 lead 22 minutes in off a goal from Htoo Ray Moo, but Defiance’s Chase Stiner scored in the 55th and 74th minutes to seal the victory.

Junior goalie Ian Rowe made four saves and junior Eddy Yousak led the team with four shots on goal. His last came with less than four minutes left off a free kick outside the penalty area. The ball was put in the top left, exactly where it needed to Bethe Defiance goalkeeper just also made an Incredible play and got enough of the ball to redirect it into the crossbar.

With less than a minute remaining, Moo was given a red card after he had become increasingly aggressive in the waning minutes, even getting into a shoving match with a Yellow Jacket.

Now, I want to put forward a hypothetical. Franklin comes into their last match of the season, tied with Anderson for the last seed of the HCAC tournament. Both play on Wednesday but, holding a tiebreaker over the Ravens, the Grizzlies only have to win to get in.

Their opponent is No. 3 seed Transylvania. Moo, one of Franklin’s main Offensive weapons, is unable to play due to picking up a red card with 38 seconds remaining in the previous game.

The match ends 0-0, Franklin only has one shot on goal and Rowe puts forth a perfect effort, making seven saves.

Anderson, meanwhile, does get a win, meaning they make the Playoffs and Franklin doesn’t. Moo is left to wonder if only he hadn’t gotten a red card, would he have given the offense what it needed to score just one goal and secure a spot in the tournament.

Thankfully that’s just a hypothetical, right? Surely that didn’t actually happen?

Well, don’t call Leslie Nielson, Shirleyand, yeah, that’s exactly what happened.

Out of season Roundup (or should I say wrap up? like a mummy)

Swimming and diving competed in the Indiana Intercollegiate Meet on Saturday, sharing the pool with Purdue, The School Formerly Known as IUPUI, Ball State and Rose-Hulman, among others.

The men lost to those four colleges, 17 points behind Rose and two ahead of both Bethel University and Wabash. Their top finisher was Campbell Coyle getting 7th in the 100 meter free.

The Women’s team finished a spot worse than their male counterparts, but beat Anderson and Rose. Senior diver Faith Jackson got 9th and 10th on the 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards, respectively.

And after taking a couple weeks off, men’s tennis got back in the mix recording their first win. The Grizzlies earned five points as compared to Johnson University’s four, including an 8-1 win at No. 3 doubles by sophomores Owen Pickerill and Nathan Jarboe.

The end part

Youve reached the end. Shout-out to the teams who finished up their seasons this week and shout-out to me for pacing my candy consumption while I wrote this and not getting a stomach ache.

See you next week.