Farmington gives No. 2 seed St. Pius a fight

ALBUQUERQUE

For the past two months the Farmington football team has been playing extremely well after a 0-4-1 start.

Albuquerque St. Pius coach San Juan Mendoza and the No. 2 Sartans took notice as they scratched their way into the semifinals of the New Mexico Class 5A football playoffs.

“It was a back and forth game and our guys had to play mentally tough and not give up,” Mendoza said following his teams’ 41-32 victory last Friday at the Nusenda Community Stadium in Albuquerque.

“There were momentum changers no doubt,” he said. “Farmington kept coming and coming but we responded every single time and it was important that we always had an answer for them.”

In other 5A action, the Miyamura Patriots had their season cut short when they dropped a 44-6 decision to No. 3 Roswell.

The Sartans put the game away on a 50-yard scoring strike by senior quarterback Drew Ortiz to senior wideout Dylan DiLorenzo with 1:12 left in the contest.

Before that score, Farmington took advantage of a short field and pulled within 34-32 with 2:39 left on a nifty pass from Kody Becenti, as the Farmington quarterback hooked up with junior Jacob Brown for a 29-yard score.

The Scorpions, however, could not tack on the two-point conversion to tie the game.

“These guys showed a lot of heart and they faced a lot of adversity this season and they never stop,” Farmington coach Jeff Dalton said. “It just goes to show what kind of young men they are going to be in our community and that is a positive. These guys will never quit.”

With the top seeds being the favorites to make a deep run in the playoffs, Dalton said his team never wavered as his team entered last Friday’s contest as the No. 10 seed.

“We stayed the course,” he said. “We stayed patient through out the year and we tried not to take shortcuts. We started to play our best football and they played great tonight.”

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