The Fountain Hills High School football team returned to its home field with some style this past Friday where they pulled off an impressive win in front of the homecoming crowd.

On Sept. 20 the Falcons hosted Wickenburg at FHHS where the team beat the Wranglers 32-6.

Fountain Hills Football’s next game is this Friday, Sept. 27, against Pusch Ridge Christian Academy. The game will be home at FHHS and will start at 6 p.m.

Head coach Jason Henslin said he was excited for his team to pull off a big win with the homecoming game, a game he believes can sometimes be difficult to prepare a team for.

“Homecoming week can be tough on practice sometimes,” Henslin explained. “There are a lot of extracurricular activities going on and it can be hard to get the guys to focus on the game. It’s a big event so you don’t want to lay an egg and disappoint. I am really proud of the effort they showed, though.”

According to Henslin the Falcons’ defense took no time at all to come alive, forcing Wickenburg to punt on their opening drive. Even when the Falcons forced a scramble out of Wickenburg’s punter which resulted in a Wranglers first down, the FHHS defense shut down Wickenburg’s offense in three downs, forcing another punt.

The Falcon offense, however, stumbled a little out of the gate.

“Our offense took a while to get going,” Henslin said. “There were some tips on throws and an interception that slowed us down. I am really proud, though, because the guys never hung their heads and eventually, in the second quarter, we started scoring.”

The Falcons’ first points on the scoreboard came from a not often seen safety, after the Falcon defense knocked the ball over five yards back into the Wickenburg end zone and tackled the recovering Wrangler player. The safety got the gears turning for the Falcons, Henslin said, and after that both the Falcon passing and running games excelled.

“Boden Davidson was a force on both offense and defense with two interceptions and two touchdown catches,” Henslin said. “Then both Calvin Lupien and Ahmed Momoh ran the ball for a significant number of yards. A big part of us moving the ball like we did was our line, players like J.T. Despain who really opened up holes for us.”

Henslin said he really enjoyed getting to see the Falcons win their homecoming game but he also enjoyed seeing his team control the terms of play and play through the downs to pull off a well-deserved victory.