Anne Peltier/THE POST Tisha Franklin practices her starts in preparation for the 400 and 1,600 relays. Franklin, a graduate student at Ohio, used only three of her four years of eligibility as an undergraduate student at Long Island.

The Ohio women's track team is lucky to have Tisha Franklin competing this spring.

Franklin, a graduate student, didn't plan to use her final year of collegiate eligibility after completing her undergraduate career at Long Island last year. She looked at graduate schools and made an academic choice to attend Ohio to earn her degree in athletic administration.

"I was going to try to get in without using my last year, be finished with track," Franklin said. "But I decided to use it. Why not use it? Why just waste it?"

Ohio head coach Elmore Banton is happy she didn't waste it. In Franklin, he adds a top-quality sprinter to his team.

"She's one of the top sprinters in the (Mid-American Conference), no doubt about it," Banton said. "Of course there's LaTasha Jenkins, Tisha, the two girls from Akron and the girl from Kent. The MAC is full of good sprinters."

Franklin will face three of those opponents this weekend when the Bobcats travel to Akron to take on the Zips, Kent and Bowling Green. Although Franklin already set a school record in the 200-meter at 23.6 seconds in the McDonald's Invitational, Banton said she could run faster this weekend with a packed sprint field and good weather. Whether she breaks her record or not, Banton expects Franklin to win her events.

In Ohio's five competitions this spring, Franklin has won the 100-meter five times. She would have a similar achievement in the 200-meter if not for a false start at the Miami Invitational.

All those victories add up to a lot of points in competitions for Ohio.

"She's a big point maker in the 100 and 200," Banton said. "She runs both relays, which means she has very outstanding strength as well as speed. She definitely adds strength to our team. I'd like to have three or four people like that on our team."

Banton admires the fact that Franklin runs the 400 relay and 1,600 relay.

"What surprises me so much about her is her willingness to run the events," he said. "A lot of people are hesitant to run the mile relay, but she's very competitive. She runs a very strong mile relay. You don't find that in a lot of sprinters. They shy away from it. That's the surprising strength about her. "

In addition to the points Franklin earns, she brings maturity to the team, assistant coach Janey Meeks said.

"She's a very serious competitor," Meeks said. "We've always been able to depend on her in meets and pressure situations to perform well."

Franklin competed for three years with the Long Island Blackbirds in the Northeast Athletic Conference. She won 11 titles in indoor and outdoor track over her last two years and was named the Most Outstanding Performer in the conference meet her senior year. Her 200-meter time of 23.3 ranked her 21st nationally.

It was fortunate for Ohio that Franklin transferred to Long Island from a junior college in Cleveland, her hometown. It forced her to sit out her freshman year in Brooklyn. That's why she has one year of eligibility to use with the Bobcats, which makes Banton "happy as a lark." In fact, he can see only one downfall in Franklin.

"Unfortunately for us, we only have her for one year," he said.