Other Numbers of Note

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Shaun Grill holds the school and maybe county record with 11 3-pointers in a game. And he probably holds both marks for most 3-pointers in a season with 111 in 2002.

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The Knights set a season record for three-pointers with 244 in 2021 when Hayden Adams finished his career with 182. Easton Fulmer followed with 195 the next year...They broke the record of 213 set in 2020...

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When Chuck Snell made 22 straight free throws in 1956, including 20 in one game, The News-Herald called his feat "undoubtedly another record." Snell, in only 56 varsity games, converted 285 of 396 free throws (72%) in his career...His 20 straight in one game came when he tallied a then school record 38...

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Final point totals for Franklin's first state championship team in 2001: Greg Loeffert 433, Joe Grill 390, Jason Rockwell 387, Shaun Grill 345 and J.J. Horne 195. Pretty balanced.

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Meadville's 62-game winning streak at the House of Thrills  went down the drain at the hands of Franklin on Feb. 3, 1970. Bob Witherup scored 34 points, making all 14 of his free throws, in the 66-61 victory...Chuck Snell was 20/20 from the line on Feb. 25, 1956, the night he scored 38...

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Franklin's 1949 team, led by Bill "Sleep" Richardson and Ted Marchibroda, finished 22-3 after losing to Sharpsville in the D-10 title game. That was the Nursery's best record since 1927 when the "Steam Rollers," as they were called, went 25-2. Franklin's "Pony Express" squad of 1938 also lost in the D-10 championship game. The Nursery's starting five averaged 5-8, and height-wise were no match for Farrell, whose center stood 6-4.

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The Knights' 12-game winning streak to start the 1955-56 was was stopped by Warren...The game before that, they relied from 17 points down to beat Cranberry...The old record was nine straight set in 1949...

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High-scoring trio -- The Knights just missed having three players score at least 400 points in a season. Dave Miller tallied 519, Kevin Blackhurst 452 and Scott Walters 396 in 1989, Ike Burnett's last season as coach. Those three hit 29 of 41 shots (71%) in a game against Titusville. Franklin scored 100 points three times that year...A few years earlier, in 1971, the Knights almost had a pair of 400-point scorers in Jim Guyton and Mike Bowen. Guyton finished with 470, but Bowen just missed with 395. Guyton also enjoyed a 41-point game, while Bowen later netted 37...Steve Russell was the career assists leader before 1976 with 336, including 158 his senior year...

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Terri Brinker averaged 23.9 points (335 in 14 games) as a junior in the fall of 1975 and followed that up with a 29.6 average as a senior in the early days of girls basketball. She graduated in 1977 with every program record to be had at Franklin...In a fall 1976 game against Cranberry, she scored all of the Lady Knights' points in a 69-30 loss...Angelina Starr shot 82 percent from the foul line (420/510) and made 154 three-pointers during her career...Becca Gravatt drilled 85 three-pointers her senior year and nailed a 3 in every game that season...Gravatt ended her career by hitting from distance in 28 straight games....The 2010 and 2011 girls teams made 303 3-pointers, led by Saddie Gravatt's 75 in 2010. She had six in one game, as did Brooke Deal. In fact, all six of her field goals were from distance....

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Before 1976, Dave Ritchey was the Knights' all-time rebounding leader with 611. Mike Bowen grabbed 298 and 297 rebounds in each of  his last two years...

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A couple of side notes about Mike Anderson's 1978-79 season -- Bob Lynch's first as FHS coach -- in which he scored 44 points and led the Knights (462 in all) to a share of the Section 2 title. (1) The 44-point game came against Titusville, and he added a 37-point game Jan. 17 in a 101-77 romp over Warren. (2) He posted this unusual line Dec. 20 vs. Hickory: 4 21/24 29. 3. Tony Butler, who was second in scoring with 319, was a transfer from Meadville. 4. Mike Snell, son of Chuck, at one point late in the season had 215 assists, the News-Herald reported, including a couple of games with 13...

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Bob Andres' 31-point game on Jan. 9, 1951,  came against Rocky Grove and broke Franklin's school record of 28 set on Feb. 14, 1939, by Larry Gent against Union City. Between Gent and Andres, the closest anyone came to breaking the record was Ralph Musser, who bucketed 27, also against the Grove in 1944. Musser also had a 25-point game against Titusville that season. Jim Woodburn had a 26-point game against Greenville in 1940 and Ted Marchibroda scored 26 twice in 1948 against Grove City and Meadville.

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Nothing was said in The News-Herald about the 28-point game being a record. However, the 165 points Gent scored in Section 2 games was a record. Gent totaled a record 245 points for the season. Union City was a member of Section 2, at least for that season. Earlier, Cochranton was a member of Section 2...

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In fact, there was a time that Section 2 an umbrella for two leagues: the Venango-Crawford League (Franklin, Oil City, Meadville and Titusville) and the Tri- or Bi-County circuit (Rocky Grove, Cranberry, Cochranton and later Mercer)...In the midst of all this (think 1930s, 1940s), Rocky Grove played out of Section 2, but Cranberry was a member of the Upper Allegheny Valley League, which the Berries dominated...

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Andres finished the 1951 campaign with 320 points -- another school record. The old record was 306 set in 1944 by Musser. Until 1951, the only other Franklin player to score 300 points in a season was Ted Marchibroda with 301 in 1948.

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Jayvee coach Ken Wolfe replaced the head man, Harry Sigel, midway through the 1948 season. Sigel, a former Penn State grid star, took a job in another school district. His record at Franklin was 115-64 with Section 2 titles in 1938, 1940 and 1941...Franklin's 1936 team was built around state champion golfer Barrett Melvin...

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ROARING '20s -- After winning in the district title in 1922, the Nursery was 83-19 during a four-year span from 1926-29 under coach Ed Treadwell...Elgin Wood made 19 field goals and finished with 38 points in Frankln's 73-9 romp over Emlenton on Feb. 22, 1919.  The paper indicated the score could have been/should have been much worse. The Nursery missed 94 shots. "While quite a number of these would have been remarkable baskets had they landed, still fully three-quarters of them were easy opportunities with no opposition from the Emlenton boys," The News-Herald reported. The paper went on to say that Wood is a much improved shooter. "He is using both hands now, a la Jimmy Corrin, and can throw just as well as his left  as with his right..."

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AND IN 1918 -- The Nursery played a 26-game regular season schedule, finishing 20-6, and then won a best-of-three from Kane for some sort of western Pa. title. Dick Shorts, who had played for the YMC A in 1917, led Franklin in scoring with 421 points, including 377 during the regular season. Shorts took a job with the state highway department, leaving for Clarion in the midst of the playoffs, and missed Game 2, but was back for the deciding game, which was played at Warren...

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Franklin has apparently had three homes in its hoops history. The Knights currently play at the high school, which opened in the early 1960s. The old high school was located downtown at what is now Central Elementary. The Knights/Nursery had played on that spacious floor since the 1937-38 season. Before that, and since the inception of the program, Franklin played on a dinky little floor at the Armory...

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BIG COMEBACK -- Franklin trailed Corry 50-30 at the end of the third quarter in a girls game in 1974, but scored 29 points in the fourth for a 59-57 victory. Michelle Phipps scored 16 of those 29 fourth-quarter points...

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