The Franklin Varsity track team has had an eventful start to the season with beautiful weather at the Harrison Wildcat Opener meet and dreadful rainy cold weather at the Waynesville Invitational. Despite the challenges there were some great performances from athletes at both meets and lots of new personal bests for the athletes on both our men's and women's teams.

The teams started the season at the Harrison Wildcat Opener on Saturday March 30th competing against 7 other teams. Top Performances for the boys team were turned in by Connor Green, placing 3rd in the 1600 with a time of 4:32.46 and 6th in the 800 with a time of 2:05.25, Elijah Koss, finishing 6th 300 hurdles with a time of 45.10, and the 4x200 relay team of Malachi Gipson, Jaylin Riley, Eli Koss and Connor Ramsey, who finished 3rd with a time of 1:39.73.

The girls team also had some great performances at Harrison. Top scorers for the team were Laila Black, who finished 6th in the 800 with a time of 2:46.81, the 4x200 relay team of Lily Cook, Ava Milligan, Jayla Wilbourn and Sienna Finton, who finished second with a time of 1:58.23. Sienna Finton also brought home first place in the high jump with a height of 4 feet 10 inches.

Last nights Waynesville Invitational was cold and wet, but that didn't stop the teams from putting up some great numbers and exceptional performances against great competition. The boys team faced off against 12 other schools while the girls competed against 13 teams.

For the girls team Brooklyn Steiner took 3rd place in the 100 dash (13.21), Sienna Finton took 6th in high jump (4'6"), the 4x100 team of Kasey Jones, Ava Milligan, Lily Cook and Brooklyn Steiner took 2nd (55.32) and with the top performance of the day Jayla Wilbourn finished first overall in the long jump with a distance of 13 feet 11 inches.

The boys team Malachi Gipson took 6th in the 200 (24.00), Eli Koss took 4th in the 110 hurdles (18.33), Connor Green finished 3rd in the 800 (2:12.34) and with the best finish for the boys team the 4x800 relay team of Oliver Crosthwaite, Daniel Osborne, Donavon Schuyler and Connor Green brought home 2nd place in a time of 9 minutes and 13.46 seconds.

Tomorrow the track team will be travelling to Dixie to take on the Greyhounds along with 13 other teams at the Dixie HS Invitational. Field events will begin at 4:30 with running events beginning at 5pm. Come out and cheer on the Wildcats as they work to bring home some more hardware.