Franklin Cortez wasn't on Luke Shoemaker's scouting report.
It was the 2018 season. Shoemaker was in his first and only year as head boys soccer coach at Greenwood, having served as Siloam Springs assistant coach for the past four seasons.
The Panthers, then coached by Brent Crenshaw, were playing at Greenwood in late March and Shoemaker thought he had a thorough analysis of Siloam Springs' roster.
"I listed every position," Shoemaker said. "Every guy in the starting 11."
There was however, one guy, he didn't know about.
"I remember with about a minute left, a kid comes flying down the left wing, and I thought he would side net it," Shoemaker said. "And sure enough it was a banger of a goal."
Shoemaker motions to Cortez, sitting next to him in the Panthers' locker room.
"It ended up being this guy right here," Shoemaker said. "I had no idea who he was, had to ask Brent about him, and I thought, 'Dang, that is definitely not a kid that I mentioned or knew existed.'"
Shoemaker, now in his third year as head boys coach at Siloam Springs, definitely knows Cortez as well as anyone now.
And so do teams in the 5A-West Conference.
Heading into Tuesday's 5A-West Conference match against Vilonia, Cortez had scored 19 goals to go with 16 assists -- both of which lead the Panthers (14-2, 10-2) and rank among the leaders in league play.
"I told people back in September I thought he'd go for 20 (goals) and 10 (assists)," Shoemaker. "I had a few people -- no offense to Franklin -- laugh at me about it. I said, 'You guys don't see what I see day in and day out or what I've seen the last three years. The talent's there and on top of that he's just matured as a young man. He's played the game. He's a student of the game. He talks about the game. He loves the game. It's translated on the field."
Coming into the season, Cortez had scored 12 goals and recorded six assists.
Six of those goals came in his freshman season as the Panthers advanced to the Class 6A state title game, where they lost to Russellville.
Under Shoemaker in 2019, Cortez scored five more goals and had three assists as a sophomore but he missed several games during the middle of the year after suffering a broken jaw in a home match against Alma in the middle of the season.
The injury -- two fractures under his chin and one on the left side of his face -- occurred on a play that he actually scored on.
"We were up 6-0 and Danny (Daugherty) gave me a through ball," Cortez said. "I didn't look at the goalkeeper. I was just looking at the ball. I tapped it in. Right after that's when the goalkeeper hit me and that's when I broke my jaw. I was in so much pain. I couldn't really know what was going on. I couldn't talk to anyone. I was aching so much."
After a week of no solid food, Cortez had another month before he could rejoin the team. He did return that season and helped the Panthers reach the state finals again, where they lost to Russellville 1-0.
As a junior, Cortez had tallied one goal and three assists in seven games in 2020 before the year was cut short because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Cortez said losing his junior season to the pandemic "was really tough, it hurt me a lot."
"I was very close with the seniors," he said. "Che (Jose Posada), Bambi (Christian Flores), Pecca (Christian Ruiz-Vega), Danny (Daugherty), I grew up playing with them in rec (league). We had so much chemistry and we were all finally together on one team. We wanted to show Siloam we were the new generation. For it to get taken away kind of sucked for all of us."
Cortez and the Panthers are making up for the lost season in 2021. He was voted a team co-captain by his peers and had five games with more than one goal and three games with multiple assists.
Heading into this week, the team was on a five-match winning streak and an opportunity to earn a No. 1 seed in the Class 5A state tournament, which will be played in Siloam Springs on May 13-15. The Panthers needed to beat Vilonia on Tuesday -- results were not available at presstime -- and defeat Van Buren on senior night on Friday.
"We get the home advantage (at state) and I think that's good because our fans really help us a lot, motivate us," Cortez said.
And when it comes to getting an important goal down the stretch, Shoemaker knows he has a quality option in Cortez to turn to.
"If I had to put my life on a guy getting an equalizer for us in the last five minutes of the game, I think we've got one of the best guys in the state who can go find it," Shoemaker said. "Like I said about Franklin, I knew the talent was there. He just needed a full healthy season to show what he's capable of, and it's definitely shown. I'm excited for our fans to come out to state and see how special this team and how special of a player he is."
