"I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel; a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."
Okay, so Franklin's journey up the road to Blue River Memorial Park on Saturday isn't a very long one — just 17 miles east on State Road 44 to Shelbyville. But the eight-week span between this weekend's season-opening Grizzly Invite and the HCAC Championships on that same course certainly qualifies, and Grizzlies coach Brandon Dworak really has no idea yet what to expect from his women's team this fall.

That uncertainty, though, is a big part of what's going to make this season fun.

"I think we can be as good, hopefully a little better than last year's team was," Dworak said. "It all looks a little bit murkier from a team standpoint, but I'm treating it as a good thing. I think we're going to get a lot better in the next three months getting everybody settled in."

Franklin graduated its top two runners from last year in Ella Bashor and Haley Makowski, and five of the 10 runners on the roster are freshmen, but the Grizzlies aren't a complete mystery. Wynn Wellington, the team's lone senior, placed 39th at last year's HCAC meet, while sophomore Fiona Sodrel (59th) and junior Cailyn Baechle (66th) were also in the lineup for that meet.

Wellington, who has already cracked the school's all-time top 25 at 6 kilometers, is healthier than she's been in years, according to Dworak, and the senior is eager to lead her relatively young team into the season.

Maintaining a positive outlook is the key, Wellington believes.

"Running is a hard sport," she said. "It's all just mental strength, and I feel like it's easy for people to get down and just be like, 'Oh, I don't want to be here. This is difficult; I don't want to do it today,' and so from a leadership standpoint, this year specifically I've definitely tried to be a role model in that we're all choosing to be here, and we're running on this team not because we're forced to, but because it's making us stronger, better people, and because we love to run. So I think I've definitely tried to step up as a leader, and as a senior on the team, to try to get everybody in that mindset, because that's really important."

Also important is having talent in the lineup — but Dworak feels good about what he's seen early on from his newcomers, and he's optimistic about getting contributions from that group. He believes the young Grizzlies will surprise some people this season ... perhaps even themselves.

"We've got some people that, they worked hard enough this summer where they're in the best shape of their life right now," Dworak said. "So I think they're going to do things this season that they probably didn't think were ever going to be possible, or they're running times that they haven't even come close to hitting before. The summer preparation was good, and they've set themselves up well."

Picked to finish sixth in the HCAC preseason coaches poll — right where they ended last year — the Grizzlies are hopeful that they can punch their way up into the top half of the conference. It's hard to know for sure how realistic that is without any meet results to use as a barometer, but morale is high in Franklin, where the unknown is cause for excitement rather than fear.

"It feels like a different team," Wellington said, "but in a good way."