Simpson named to Southern Conference All-Freshmen team

Former Franklin High School basketball standout and current Western Carolina University freshman Lindsay Simpson has turned heads in her first season as a Catamount. WCU's women's basketball closed out their season in the first round of the Southern Conference Tournament after a loss to Georgia Southern last Friday. Simpson led the team in the heartbreaking loss with 14 points against the higher ranked opponent.

The Lady Panthers basketball team travelled to Greensboro last Thursday for the fourth round of tournament play in the North Carolina Girls State Playoffs for 3A teams.

The varsity girls broke several records as their dream season played out and with the people of Franklin cheering them on, they made their way to the Greensboro Auditorium for one more showdown with the Tuscola Mountaineers.

Commentary and stats on the Koblat Tools 400.

Toyota teams leave engine woes behind

In the first two races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, reliability was a huge issue for the engines in the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing.

Figuratively speaking, blown power plants in the Sprint Cup Camrys created more noise than a July 4 fireworks celebration.

Though it might be too early to put those problems in the “solved” category, Toyota Racing Development, which partners with Gibbs to produce the Cup engines, had reason to rejoice on Sunday. Matt Kenseth won the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Kyle Busch ran fourth— with the TRD engines lasting the full 400 miles. “We've had a tough couple of weeks, as everybody knows, and so I really appreciate our partner, Toyota,” team owner Joe Gibbs said after the race. “In tough times, everybody kind of bands together around our place, and we start fighting and we worked our way out of some tough things.

Will compete in the Western Regionals in Greensboro

The Franklin High School Lady Panthers defeated the 3-A Mountain Athletic Conference Champions in the sectionals on Friday. The Enka Sugar Jets fell to the dominating Panthers, 61-49.

The Panthers will travel to Greensboro Thursday, to compete in the Western Regionals against conference rival Tuscola for their fourth meeting this season, with Franklin on the plus side at 2-1 against Tuscola.