Youngers eager to improve

FRANKLIN — Season-ending postgame locker rooms are often filled with tears.

The finality of a career’s worth of dedication and effort coming to an end is usually accompanied by an outpouring of emotion, as was the case in a far hallway of Franklin High School last season following New Palestine’s sectional loss, which capped the careers of several Dragons’ veterans.

In the same Franklin hallway Friday, following another New Palestine sectional defeat, the scene was different.

As the Dragons exited their locker room, they certainly weren’t happy about a 61-23 semifinal defeat to Franklin Central, but there was also a sense that the blowout would not mark the end-all, be-all of this young team’s collective career.

“They know it’s a step in the journey,” New Palestine coach Jacki Negri said of her varsity squad, made up entirely of freshmen and sophomores. “It’s a process. And they’re ready.

“Before we left the locker room, a couple of them said, ‘When can I get in the gym?’ That’s great. They’re ready to keep working. So, I’ll take that any day.”

This story appears in the print edition of Daily Reporter. Subscribers can read the entire story online by signing in here or in our e-Edition by clicking here.