Farmington boys take Marv Sanders tournament again

FARMINGTON

The middle of the season is still around the corner but the Farmington High School boys’ basketball team is already putting check marks next to their list of goals for the season.

Six games into the season the Scorpions have amassed a 5-1 record and they marked off one of their big goals on their to-do list when they defeated crosstown rival Piedra Vista High School 44-37 and won their Marv Sanders Boys Basketball Invitational championship for the second year in a row.

Farmington head boys’ basketball coach Paul Corley said it was what his team hoped for and they simply made it happen.

“It’s always good to beat the city rival,” Corley said. “That was a lot of fun, that was one of the goals for the kids this year and I thought we had a good chance at it.”

The chance was there but a couple of times throughout the tournament, it seemed as if it would soon disappear, even in the game with the Panthers.

The Scorpions went into the match and executed like a team seeking back-to-back championships in their own tournament.

They had a strong start with a 12-0 run and led Piedra Vista 12-2 after the first quarter. Farmington continued to control the tempo and kept Piedra Vista at bay to lead 26-16 at the half.

Corley said his team played with a mission in the first half.

“We just really focused on defense in that first half, it was the best man-to-man defense we’ve played all year,” he said. “We were able to get that lead and maintain that lead.”

But with less than five minutes left in the third quarter, the sleeping Panthers woke up.

Piedra Vista went on a 5-0 run to narrow the deficit to two points; Farmington led 30-28.

Capitalizing on Piedra Vista’s mistakes, the Scorpions scored twice more to end the quarter with a 34-28 lead.

Farmington continued to take advantage of the Panthers’ short falls to close in for the win.

Corley said the win was a team effort that showed what his team had to offer on both sides of the court.

“They did give us a little run there in the third quarter,” he said. “I thought our defense was great and we got a really good balance on the offensive part.”

Piedra Vista head coach Devon Manning said his team had a number of weak areas throughout the game but it was their start that really established the outcome.

He said putting a score on the board until the very end of the first quarter of the game set the tone for the remaining quarters.

“We really lost the game in the first quarter. It’s hard to come back from 10 points playing a team like Farmington,” he said. “We got to get better on the offensive end, that’s what kind of held us back against Farmington; we weren’t really good offensively.”

Manning said having to battle Farmington’s 6-foot-7 post David Riley didn’t make things any easier as his team was outmatched in the paint.

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