FHS Basketball Readies for State Tournament

The Farmington High School boys basketball team heads into the postseason on a high note. You're watching the local news network brought to you by MSR Plumbing and Ace Hardware. I'm Connor Shreve. Scorpions head coach Larry Don Chitty says his team is playing its best basketball. The growth that we've seen, the improvement we've seen this year is the most I've seen in a single season for varsity group, maybe because we needed to a lot. But these guys have worked so hard and we're a completely different team than we were earlier in the season. And it's I mean, they go hard all the time in practice and I'm just super proud of that. More than anything. The Scorpions have been led by senior guard Landon Begaye, who tops the district in nearly every stat and surpassed 1000 career points earlier this season. It means a lot. After, like, four years of hard work and dedication and to stay motivated all four years to do it. So just having that where, you know, you can count on this every night. And so that's helped take the pressure off all the other guys because now everybody's focusing on him. And it's made it a little easier for the other guys. And we've had other guys step up and really be able to score and stuff too. And then you throw in Mikey back, who does all the stuff on defense, all the rebounding. Brings the ball up, handles it. A lot of times you have an all around guy like that and I think the two of them working together have been great this year. He says the team is playing for postseason position. To be a big ass to get a home game top eight seed. But we're going to be, you know, eight, nine, ten, 11 right in there somewhere. So we can at least get a good seed, play a team that, you know, we're as good as, and really have a chance to get to the Pitt. That's our goal every year. Let's get to that final eight so we can play a game at the Pitt. That's something Farmington hasn't accomplished since moving to five eight competition six seasons ago. But Chiti says he thinks this team can get there. Clevelands been ranked 4 or 5 all year. And we went beat them at their place last week. And so it just lets them know listen we can beat some of these top teams. And volcano is way better than everybody. We get it. But everybody else, we look around, we go, okay, we can play with these guys, we can beat these guys on their floor. And I think that's been a big confidence boost for these guys this year. Being able to go and do that, Chiti says playing in the state's toughest district has the Scorpions prepared for whatever the postseason has in store. The New Mexico State basketball tournament tips off Friday, March 7th. You can learn more about this story and others online at Farmington Local Dot news. Thanks for watching this edition of the local news network. I'm Connor Shreve.