Benjamin Franklin hands Many Farms first round loss

TEMPE, Ariz.

The crowning moment for the Many Farms baseball team this past season was making the state playoffs.

Last Friday’s the Lobos made an appearance in the Arizona Division V state baseball tournament, which marked the first time in over 20 years that a Many Farms baseball team has made the playoffs.

“It’s been awhile,” Many Farms coach Shawn Deschenie said. “For us it was an exciting moment for our baseball team. I am really happy that they accomplished something that hasn’t been achieved in awhile.

With a veteran group, Deschenie said making the state playoffs was a work in progress as he had the luxury of returning some of his top pitchers from last year’s team.

“They believed in the program and they worked hard,” he said of his senior laden team. But (of course I have some young guys that are part of the program and they have helped enhance our program.”

The Lobos finished as the section runner-up with a 13-2 record, which earned the Lobos a No. 17 seed in the state playoffs.

Many Farms faced the Benjamin Franklin Chargers, last Friday at Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Ariz. The Lobos kept pace with the Queen Creek, Ariz., for the first two frames before the Chargers scored nine runs in the final three innings in a 10-0 win that went five innings as the Lobos finished the season at 15-11.

“We were right with them from the start and we gave them some runs base on errors and that was the tough part,” Deschenie said. “That is a challenge of baseball but we battled and we had our moments too.”

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