They might not be as stacked with proven talent as they have been in the past few years but the Fountain Hill High School beach volleyball team is already showing promise on the sand.

The Lady Falcons have their first game of the season this Thursday, March 5, at Indian School Park in Scottsdale. FHHS will face off against Saguaro starting at 4 p.m.

There are 17 players this year on the beach volleyball team with only two seniors being on the roster. While there is plenty of talent returning to the team, there are also a lot of players new to the program.

Head coach Pete McGloin said he knows there is still a lot of work to be done but he is happy with what he is seeing at practice.

“I feel like we say this every year but when we got to that first practice of the season we were feeling pretty good about where we are,” McGloin said. “Especially going into this season knowing that we have a lot less experience and that we have to develop a lot more, we’re pretty pleased.”

For the second time in the program’s history the Lady Falcons will have a JV team and for the first time in program history that JV team will have a few schedules to compete in.

“Beach volleyball is really blowing up in Arizona,” McGloin said. “More schools are getting the sport and now there are other schools with JV teams, so we have eight JV schedules on the schedule which means opportunities for everyone to play.”

Having 17 players in a pair sport is not ideal but McGloin and his staff have found a way around that bump.

“Constantly, every week we have to reevaluate pairs and whoever doesn’t have that partner is thrown into a Queen of the Beach tournament,” McGloin explained. “So we are going to constantly have opportunities for everyone to work their way in to the main rotation.”

Just like previous seasons McGloin only has one goal for his players.

“It is the same goal as every season, just work as hard as we can and have as much fun as we can,” McGloin said. “Our goals are never result-based, they are focused on what we can control.”

One thing that might help the players work hard this season is the new sand that has been placed in the Golden Eagle Park courts.

“We got new sand and are finally training in deep sand,” McGloin said. “We were one of the only top teams last year that didn’t train in deep sand and that kind of hurt us come playoff time. The girls really noticed when we started training on it.”

McGloin said that he can already see a difference in the girls’ conditioning.