Many Farms girls earn state playoff bid
Navajo Times | Quentin Jodie
Many Farms Lady Lobo Julian Begay snarls a rebound against St. Johns during the semifinals of the 2A North Region tournament on Friday.
ST. JOHNS, Ariz. – The Many Farms girls basketball team is headed to the Big Dance.
The Lady Lobos earned the No. 24 seed, and they will make the trek to play No. 9 seed Mohave Accelerated in Bullhead City, Arizona today with the tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m.
“This is really nice for the girls,” Many Farms coach Tracy Todecheene said. “I want them to get a taste of it and get an understanding of what it feels like to be in the state tournament again.
“It’s a big deal and if they can understand that, then we can start moving up as a program,” he added.
In addition to Many Farms, the Sanders Valley Lady Pirates also got an invitation. The Pirates earned the No. 19 seed, and they will play at No. 14 Northland Prep also on Thursday in Flagstaff.
“I’m confident and they’re feeling confident too,” Valley coach Dorothy Mitchell said of the playoffs. “We’re going to try and make a run at it and see how we do.”
On Saturday afternoon the two schools played for the third-place trophy in the 2A North Region tournament with Many Farms coming out on top 55-51. With the four-point triumph, the Lady Lobos won the season series 2-1. On the previous day, Many Farms had come up short to St. Johns by a 66-32 count while Valley lost to Round Valley by a 59-34 count.
“We can play against teams like Valley, but we need to play with teams like St. Johns and Round Valley because they’re at the top in our region,” Todecheene said. “If we can do that, I think it can really change our program.”
Many Farms enters the playoffs at 16-10 overall behind a bevy on underclassmen.
“We’re getting everyone back for next year,” Todecheene said. “I have four juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen and if they stay committed I think we’ll really come together next year.”
The longtime Many Farms coach is planning to have a summer program with his girls, something they couldn’t do the past two off-seasons.
“As you know, Covid got in the way,” Todecheene said.
Many Farms did not field a team for the 2020-21 season and for the past two summers the school gymnasium was closed.
“Our school couldn’t give us the gym in the summertime,” Todecheene said. “They had their reasons, but that was hard because all of the other high schools were actually working and practicing.
“That is one of the reasons why we kind of got behind,” he added. “We’ll be getting the gym back this summer and eventually we’re going to start hitting some summer tournaments.”
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