For the second year in a row, Fountain Hills High School has been given the Don F. Stone Award for the 3A conference, an honor that signifies “overall excellence in athletics” and recognizes FHHS as the most athletically successful school in the conference.

Looking back at the 2013-14 season, it’s easy to see why the local school would once again be honored.

Two teams and an athlete or two earned state championship crowns this season, with many others going deep into the postseason tournaments.

All of those successes resulted in yet another Don F. Stone Award for the Falcons, an achievement Athletic Director Mike Briguglio said he found out just before the current school year ended in late May.

“The AIA contacted me the day after our spring sports banquet,” Briguglio said.

“We were in the gym, so I told everyone we had a good chance of winning another one of those, pointing at the banner hanging on the wall.”

Even though the AIA is now broken into divisions, the Don F. Stone Award is based off conferences. The Falcons, for instance, are a member of the 3A conference.

“For the second year in a row, for the entire 3A conference, we garnered the most points toward this award,” Briguglio explained.

“It’s entirely based on how well your teams do collectively at state, and we had 13 out of our 15 teams make the state tournament this past year.”

Briguglio said that this award serves as a good testament to FHHS athletes and the quality coaches guiding them through their seasons.

“That, as well as support from the community, the Booster Club, the parents in general, it all comes together in this award,” he said.

“I’m very proud of the fact that our athletic department was able to accomplish this, especially two years in a row.”

Before last season, the Falcons had only received the Don F. Stone Award once before, back in 2001-02.

Briguglio said that it is especially gratifying to see the program going so strong over the past decade, as the economic downturn led to shrinking enrollment and budgetary constraints. Despite those limitations, he said the excellence of the local sports program has remained.

“I was excited when I found out about the award and extremely proud of our students, coaches and community,” Briguglio continued.

“We are one of, if not the, only self-funded athletics department in the state…I feel that this is a feather in the hat of Fountain Hills athletics.”