The Fountain Hills High School beach volleyball team started its season with two wins last week. The Falcons traveled to Scottsdale Prep for their season opener on Thursday, Feb. 23, and came home with a 4-1 victory. Their win over Eastmark on Friday, Feb. 24, came down to the final match.

“Great way to start the season, easily could’ve gone the other way,” head coach Peter McGloin said.

“That’s often the case in beach volleyball. The difference between winning 5-0 or losing 2-3 can be very small, so it was good to pull those out.”

The Falcons beat Eastmark 3-2, and the final decision came down to a tiebreaker between the top pairs. Juniors Sydney Boeshans and Bella Garman beat Eastmark 21-17, 16-21, 15-10 to improve to 2-0 after beating Scottsdale Prep 21-10, 21-16 on Thursday. Garman also moved up to 15th in career wins on the Falcon’s school leaderboards with her second win.

“That was their first big experience with having to have the entire program counting on them and putting us on their back and take us to victory,” McGloin said. “That was huge. Hopefully a big confidence boost to them.”

The Falcons’ number two pair combination is junior Elle Schulze and junior Sophie Wickland this year. They won in a tiebreaker against Scottsdale Prep, 13-21, 21-19, 15-10, but lost to Eastmark 24-22, 21-19.

The Falcons had five tiebreakers in their first two matches, and they won four of them. McGloin said tiebreaker sets are great for processing afterward because there were good and bad plays and plenty of experiences to learn from.

“It’s so much about doing the little things, but also having the right mindset for us to be our best selves,” McGloin said. “When we don’t do those things, you can lose big. You can do those things and all of a sudden win big. We’re not consistent yet, that’s what we need for all of our pairs. Really striving to realize what it is that we do that allows us to be successful and keep doing that.”

The Falcons’ third pair has already had some movement. On Thursday, the Falcons started sophomore Kitrick Garman and freshmen Lilly Miller together, and on Friday, the Falcons started Kitrick and sophomore Jocelyn Bloedel.

“We have six freshmen who are alternates competing with each other and we really love the potential for all of them,” McGloin said. “It’s very rare for any of our freshmen to be able to play on varsity, especially for her first game. It’s a testament to her ball control. [Miller]’s a very good passer, it was a windy day, and she had some of those skills that can really help in those types of conditions.”

McGloin did not coach Miller’s side, but said he heard good feedback from his assistant coaches. Alumnus KC McMahon has returned and been a huge asset now with five years’ worth of Division I experience in indoor volleyball. The young Falcons are quick learners, and McGloin said the other freshmen will have varsity opportunities soon.

Kitrick and Miller fell short in their first match and lost 21-14, 21-16. Kitrick and Bloedel won a close first set, 21-19, and then dominated to win the second set on Friday, 21-7.

Miller was the only Falcon in the top three that didn’t play varsity last year. The number four pair, sophomores Bree March and Savannah Peterson, didn’t play much varsity last year, but they won both of their matches in tiebreaker sets. They beat Scottsdale Prep 21-13,18-21, 15-11, and then beat Eastmark 21-9, 19-21, 15-10.

Sophomore Lucia Kalmbach, and senior Liv Sopeland, the Falcon’s only senior, rounded out the team in the fifth pair. They won 21-11, 21-10 against Scottsdale Prep, but lost to Eastmark in a tiebreaker, 22-24, 21-13, 15-13.

At this point so early in the season, McGloin feels like the Falcons could beat anybody, but also lose to anybody. He wants to see more consistency in all his players, and wants them to embrace the little things, like communicating and other things that help to be a good teammate.

The Falcons have three more matches this week. They hosted Deer Valley on Monday, Feb. 27, after press time, and they travel to Victory Lane Complex to face Mountainside today, Mach 1, at 4 p.m. The Falcons will host Gilbert Christian this Friday, March 3, at 4 p.m., and travel to face Veritas Prep next Monday, March 6, at Indian School Park.

The Falcons have six more games in March after Veritas Prep and three more in April. The Falcons are off to a great start, but they have a long season ahead of them.

“We just can’t get too comfortable,” Sopeland said. “We have to go in with the right mindset, like willing to fight for it. No matter who we’re playing, we have to have the same mindset. Whether they’re the best team in the state or the lowest ranked one, we have to come in with the right mindset and just be ready to play.”