Franklin Regional Ultimate teams conclude seasons at state tournament

The Franklin Regional boys and girls Ultimate Frisbee teams closed out highly successful spring seasons at the Pennsylvania state tournaments Saturday and Sunday in Allentown.

The boys team, which captured the Pittsburgh High School Ultimate League championship May 19 and finished sixth at the USA Ultimate Northeastern regional tournament May 21 and 22, placed fourth overall at states Sunday afternoon.

It marks the second highest finish at states after the team took third in 2014.

The Franklin Regional girls team took sixth at states this past weekend, the second highest finish in the program's four years.

It placed fifth in both 2013 and 2014.

The FR boys entered the state tournament with fellow PHUL teams North Allegheny, Pine-Richland and Fox Chapel.

The Panthers, as the No. 4 seed, finished 2-1 in pool play and also won a pool crossover contest to enter the playoffs 3-1 overall,

One of the pool-play wins came against Pine-Richland, 11-10.

FR scored a 16-5 victory over the Rams in the PHUL championship game.

Franklin Regional topped Haverford, 15-12, in the quarterfinals before suffering a tough 12-11 loss to Lower Merion in the semifinals.

Lower Merion, the No. 2 seed, went on to capture the title with a 15-13 win over Pennsbury.

The Panthers then fell to No. 3 North Penn, 13-3, in the consolation final.

Representing the boys team at states were Peter Drew, Ben Zhu, Joseph Merante, Jason Dick, Joseph Snider, Jake Pascarela, Victor Mao, Nolan Freda, Adam Schwab, Winston Fu, Daniel Tometich, Chris Rosendale and Joshua Hill.

Dominic Furnari, Zach Snider, Keenan Traphagen and Rob Davis also were on the roster for the Northeastern regional tournament.

Between the PHUL regular season and playoffs and the Northeastern regional and states, the Franklin Regional boys squad compiled a 19-7 record.

Included in that was a 12-1 record in the PHUL regular season and playoffs. The PHUL title was the Panthers' second in the past three seasons.

The Franklin Regional girls squad held its No. 6 seed at states as it went 2-2 in pool play with wins over Masterman, 7-3, and Science Leadership Academy, 8-1, and losses to No. 3 Haverford, 9-6, and PHUL rival Fox Chapel, 10-4.

Fox Chapel, the No. 1 seed in the 10-team tournament, made it to the championship game.

The Panthers advanced to the bracket playoffs where they suffered a 15-2 loss to No. 5 seed North Allegheny in the first round. Franklin Regional got past No. 7 Pine-Richland, 12-7, in the semifinals of the fifth-place bracket before falling to Haverford, 7-1, in the finals.

Oakland Catholic also represented the PHUL at states, and the Eagles went 0-4 in their four pool-play games.

A mixture of youth and veterans paced the Franklin Regional girls team at states. Team members for states were Nicole Baldy, Shannen Cloherty, Meredith Easterling, Nina Huczko, Sarah Jahangeer, Juliana Landis, Annmarie Miller, Grace Nitchman, Sarah Rowley, Anishaa Sivakumar, Adele Swecker, Kimberly Xue, Allison Zhang, Katherine Rowley, Ashley Li and Corinne Baker.

The team went 7-4 overall in PHUL play and participated in the league playoffs.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-388-5825 or at mlove@tribweb.com.