Representing Farmington

BALLPARK BENEFITS BASEBALL

FARMINGTON — With a 5-3 victory over Lincoln on April 15, Farmington finished out the baseball regular season as conference champions unbeaten in league play, at 7-0

The Cardinals are 16-2 overall and take the number one seed into the district tournament at Ozark this week. Farmington will play on Saturday at noon.

“That was our goal from last year,” said Farmington coach Jay Harper. “We went to work early this year to achieve it.”

Harper talked about the disappointing season-ending loss to Gentry in the 2012 district tournament.

“We didn’t want that to happen so we worked harder to get better,” said senior Levi Strope.

According to Harper, the goals for this year were winning the conference, winning district, and getting to Regionals and State. By virtue of their outstanding regular season, the Cardinals have accomplished two of those goals with a firstround bye at district pre-

Farmington for qualifying Regionals.

The kicker is Farmington will host the Regional tournament this year.

“Having the Regional here is a great thing. It will be home field advantage for us,” Harper said. “Coach [Brad] Blew bid on it and got it.”

“We’ve been pretty good so far,” said senior short stop, Spencer Boudrey, who went on to describe the season success as a result of all-around team play.

“We have been connecting when we have runners on and when someone is in a slump our backup guys have been hitting. Our pitchers are doing phenomenal, they are hitting their spots.”

“It feels nice having this brand new ball field. We just come out and try to show gratitude to the school for getting us this new ball field and show them how good we are.”

Harper said winning the number one seed going into the district tournament has advantages.

“We don’t have to play for a couple of days, it lets us rest. I’m happy about that.”

Harper called the new Cardinal ballpark a great facility, saying the Farmington administration has done a great job of building it.

I’m happy with the new ballpark we have. Our kids really enjoy it and I think our fans really enjoy it.”