The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have changed some of the usual goals of the Fountain Hill High School girls volleyball team, but their number one rule of having fun and making memories is still intact.

The Lady Falcons will play the first game of their 16-match season on Sept. 22 away against Bourgade Catholic. Two days later, on Sept. 24, they will play their first home match against Payson starting at 6 p.m. in the high school gym.

With all of the changes and uncertainty of this season, it’s comforting for the Falcons to see the familiar face of Pete McGloin return to the role of head coach. McGloin spent the previous two years focusing his attention on beach volleyball.

“It wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t shut down,” McGloin explained. “Everything happened so suddenly, we didn’t have a coach here yet, so the stars aligned and everything worked out. Once I committed to doing it again, all the excitement of indoor volleyball came back.”

McGloin said that with this year being such a special case, he and the team have had to adjust their usual goals.

“For us, the number one goal is always to have fun, but this year the gap between that goal and others is so much bigger,” McGloin said. “It is a big change for me because I am always really stressed out about getting every ounce of effort out of the team and getting us to realize our potential. But this year we don’t have tournaments, there are less games and we didn’t have any offseason, so I just have to slow the roll and appreciate the time we have together and not be obsessed about everything else.”

McGloin is also making sure that his players are taking their health seriously and staying home when they need to.

“That’s another big 180 change for us. In the old days, we used to fight through any little discomfort or sickness and that can’t happen anymore,” McGloin said. “We really have to stay home for each other because, if something spreads, then we lose our entire season.”

Unlike previous years where the team would play a full season of games in the offseason, the Lady Falcons have only been back on the court this past week.

“We just started practicing this week,” McGloin explained. “We were allowed to have tryouts on Tuesday and we had done outdoor workouts the week before at 5:30 in the morning at Golden Eagle Park. That was our way of getting back to the culture of the program and fun with each other.”

Along with McGloin being a familiar face, most of the team will be familiar as well. The majority of this year’s 12-person squad is returning seniors.

“We have got a lot of seniors, a lot of returning players from last year’s varsity,” McGloin said. “There are eight returning seniors, so there weren’t a lot of spots up for grabs in tryouts. We have a couple of great sophomores that have moved into town and a couple of girls who moved up from JV, so we have a solid team of 12.”

With such a deep roster and not having his normal offseason prep, McGloin is still figuring out the lineup of the team, but he has a lot of talent to work with.

“Everyone is someone you should keep an eye on,” McGloin said. “But I will take note of Grace Abrams because she is in her third year as a varsity starter, she’s led the team in kills for the last two years so, going into her senior year, I am expecting a big season out of her. But, again, there’s a lot of players I’m expecting big things from.”