The Fountain Hills High School girls basketball team is a team of guards, according to senior Star Camacho. The Falcons are undersized compared to most other teams, but they are scrappy and find ways to win. One of the biggest wins the girls had this season was recruiting senior post Michaela Quintana.

“We begged her to play,” Camacho said. “We got her, thank God.”

Quintana adds height to the Falcons, and she is a familiar face. Two years ago, she was on the summer team. Before COVID, the girls basketball program had a JV and a varsity team, but they barely had enough athletes to put together a team last year. Getting Quintana to join added one more bench player, so that this year they have three substitutes. Last year, the girls were lucky to have just one pair of fresh legs.

“Because of last year, we learned to work with what we had,” Camacho said. “Now that we have even more, we feel a little bigger. Especially because of senior year, all the seniors are pumped right now. We have all this energy now.”

All four of the seniors on the girls team were honored last week for Senior Night. They make up half the team, and the seniors helped earn a 43-25 win over Benjamin Franklin High School last Wednesday, Dec. 8.

Freshman Seilah Smith had a team high 13 points and 11 rebounds. Smith also had four steals. Her older sister, senior Soliel Smith, scored 11 points, three steals, three rebounds, and seven assists. Quintana had the third most points with nine, and she also had seven rebounds and two steals.

Senior Ezra Scaife scored five points, two rebounds and recorded one block. Juniors Titleist Patrick added four points, four rebounds and five steals, and LJ Holland added five rebounds, two steals, two blocks and one point.

“One of our biggest benefits of being such a small school and small team, is we have the ability to be more personal with each other,” Quintana said. “We are more personal with our coaches and athletic director. It gives us a lot of hype and pumps us up to have the energy to keep us going.”

The Falcons have faced tall teams with twice as many players, but they don’t back down. The girls are trying to take advantage of an older roster, but the biggest challenge is adjusting to the fast speed of the game. Since the girls don’t have 10 players, they have only been able to practice 5v5 a few times this season.

“I think it was a huge mental adjustment for all of us,” Quintana said. “Our first couple of games, you could see it in the way we were just running through the motion of the plays.”

The girls have already doubled their number of wins from last year. After the Senior Night win, the girls are 2-2 on the season. The Falcons traveled to San Tan Foothills on Monday, Dec. 13, after publishing.

The girls have the Epic Tourneys New Years Classic Invitational presented by Chandler Prep this winter break. The tournament is from Dec. 28-30, and it will be hosted at Higley High School. The Falcons will return to their home court on Tuesday, Jan. 4, when they host Payson at 5:30 p.m.