Congratulations to the 2013 Falcons baseball team for winning the Division III state championship on Saturday evening.

Reporter Ryan Winslett was at both the semi-final game on Friday evening, when Fountain Hills easily cruised past Chino Valley, along with the exciting championship battle on Saturday.

Me?

Since I had some other things going on into early Saturday evening, I was able to settle in at home a bit later and watch the last two-thirds of the game as it was streamed live on the computer at www.aia365.com.

Like our new website and all the other stuff we do, technology sure is an amazing thing these days...

I was watching the Diamondbacks on TV (not the same results as the Falcons) while listening and watching my laptop for the high school game.

Coach Mike Briguglio has certainly created a juggernaut with Fountain Hills' baseball teams going back to 2001 with the first state championship. Coach B no doubt wanted this championship rather badly, since the last couple of attempts in post-season play were a disappointment as nothing short of "We're number one" seems to be the expectation year after year.

The coach and athletic director is in his 16th season at Fountain Hills and had a 3-3 record in state championship games before this past weekend.

With an overall record of 28-5, the 2013 Falcons had a tremendously strong season and showed much versatility this spring. Things like powerful pitching, timely hitting and not-too-shabby defense certainly add up to a winning baseball season.

They overcame an early deficit during the championship game and didn't let those ugly Tucson Empire uniforms intimidate them. The Falcons had everyone on the edge of their seats as they eventually tied up the game and found themselves in the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs.

Nathan Fett hit a grounder deep in the hole at shortstop, allowing the winning run to score with a gutsy and nifty slide into home by Paul Bryniarski (never mind the "stop" sign being given by Briguglio at third base).

Kudos to the Falcons baseball team. They deserved every bit of the celebration they took advantage of on Saturday evening...

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We’ll probably be discussing our new website for the next few weeks as we continue to roll out new features and changes.

In today’s issue, for example, we have a small insert to familiarize readers with the new site and capabilities.

Another example is much of the above “column” you just read actually first appeared on our website Sunday evening in my blog.

Both Ryan and I have new blogs on the Times site (accessible under the “Features” tab on the homepage). Let’s Go! Editor Linda McThrall also has a blog.

There are no set timeframes to update these blogs, and it’s obviously going to depend on our schedules and what’s going on in town during the various seasons.

But we feel it’s just one more tool that we can use in our continuing quest to create community and keep you up to date with issues and viewpoints.