The season came to an official close for the Fountain Hills High School track and field team with the culmination of the Meet of Champions on May 11.

The meet, held at Arizona State University, is for the state’s top athletes who performed well at the state meet in the first week of May.

Five Falcon field athletes ended up qualifying for and participating in the Meet of Champions including Madison George in the pole vaulting event, Brant Ralph for the discus and Darrean Smith, Porter Sweet and Stephanie Lies for the javelin throw.

Ralph, a junior, set a new personal record with a discus throw of 148’. Senior Smith thew the javelin for a distance of 152’10’’, setting a new personal record, and freshmen Sweet threw for a distance of 140’07’’.

Lies, a senior, was able to make a distance of 101’06” with her javelin throw and George, also a senior, vaulted a height of 12’6”, netting her third place in the event.

Overall, this year’s season has been a successful one for Fountain Hills track and field despite the team facing the challenge of a limited roster.

“For the 2019 season, although we were few in number, our team did very well,” first-year head coach Nick Goodman said. “We had seven of our 23 athletes compete at the state championship.”

Out of those seven at the state meet, two of the Falcons took first place in their events including Stephanie Lies for the javelin and Madison George in the pole vault.

“My favorite memory was seeing Stephanie Lies and Madison George win a state championship,” Goodman beamed. “A huge congratulations to those hard-working ladies. They are the MVPs of the team this year.”

George’s performance at state in particular was impressive, given that her winning vault of 13’ set a new record for height cleared by a Division III girl pole vaulter.

Still, Goodman recognizes that the lack of depth in the roster is the biggest challenge that is holding the Falcons back from success as a team.

“With such a limited number of athletes it was hard to fill each event at the meets and score points needed to be competitive as a team,” Goodman explained.

There were some meets and invitationals this season where the Falcons, as a team, where able to place higher in the competition with only a couple of their athletes. For example, at the Valley Christian invitational on April 13, the Lady Falcons placed fifth out of 23 schools competing, with only George and Lies taking part in the event.

Earlier in the season at the March 9 Small School Invitational, the Lady Falcons placed sixth out of the 45 schools competing, this time with three athletes; George, Lies and Lauren Schultz.

Goodman is hoping to build up the team’s numbers for next season by keeping the culture of track and field going at FHHS year-round.

“I have committed to coach the cross country team in the fall and am hoping to build a stronger track and field culture from the beginning of the year so that we have more participation in the spring,” Goodman said. “If we have more participation next year, I am sure that we will overcome many of the shortcomings that we encountered this year.”