The 2018-19 Fountain Hills High School girls soccer team closed out the season just shy of its state title goal but still finished as one of the top teams in its division.

The Lady Falcons’ season began last November with an opening match against Combs, which they handily won 5-0.

Most of FHHS’ wins would go like the Combs match, with the Lady Falcons racking up their side of the score board while keeping their opponent scoreless, as in the Jan. 29 Horzion Honors match that Fountain Hills won by an impressive final score of 11-0.

It wasn’t a perfect season boasting only wins, however. The Lady Falcons, whose record was 14-7-1, suffered some losses along the way, including the team’s first defeat in November against Boulder Creek, 3-0. Unlike their wins, though, the Lady Falcons’ losses were always lower scoring games usually with one goal being the deciding factor.

Fountain Hills was also under the guidance of a new coach this year, who admits that he inherited a lot of talent when he took over the Falcons.

“Coming into this position I was blessed to inherit things that were already in place; talent, experience and a winning culture,” said head coach, Matt Wiehl. “My job was to provide structure and to keep the team pointed in the right direction when we started to waver as challenges presented themselves. In comparison, with other teams I have coached the emphasis was often in building new or rebuilding existing programs.”

Wiehl has been a coach for over 10 years and has coached numerous high school boys and girls soccer programs in different states. He acknowledges there are some areas where the Lady Falcons could improve, but Wiehl points to FHHS’ offense as one of the team’s strong points.

“A strength of our team was the balance among our offense,” Wiehl said. “We had several players that were capable of and got involved in the goal scoring. No opponent could necessarily key in on one player. If one player was off or marked tightly, someone else was able to step up. On the other hand, a weakness we identified is that often we got off to a slow start and typically had a better second half than the first.”

The Lady Falcons’ adaptiveness was on full display in the team’s second game of the playoffs.

“I have many great memories from this season but [the highlight] has to be the state quarterfinal match with Gilbert Christian,” Wiehl said. “This was the ultimate example of overcoming obstacles when, in this match, we ended up playing a player down for 50 minutes which included two overtime periods and winning the match on the sixth penalty kick to advance to the state semifinals.”

The Lady Falcons would go on to lose in the semifinals to the eventual state champions, Northwest Christian, 3-0, but Wiehl said he couldn’t be prouder of his team.

“In keeping with the winning culture of the girls’ soccer program at Fountain Hills our goals were set very high,” Wiehl said. “One goal was to win our region and, unfortunately, we lost a region match to Anthem Prep, which gave us a second place finish in the Metro North region.

With the talent on our team, we also felt that we had a very good shot at winning state but fell just short of that goal after losing in the state semifinals to the eventual state champion. Our coaching staff was very proud of how the team faced season-long adversity and learned from these experiences.”

Looking forward to next season, Wiehl said he knows where he wants to focus his offseason efforts.

“Our small roster size and injuries we encountered were something that we couldn't foresee and it became, not only a concern, but a real issue throughout the season,” Wiehl said. “The biggest task in the offseason will be to identify current students and encourage them to participate in our girls soccer program.”