The Fountain Hills High School boys’ soccer team kept their playoff dreams alive with two hard fought wins this past week.

Fountain Hills played their first game last week against North Phoenix Preparatory Academy on Jan. 21. The Falcons won the game 5-0.

The next match for Fountain Hills was on Jan. 24 against Anthem Prep. FHHS battled hard to pull off a 2-1 victory.

This week the Falcons had one last regular season game against Horizon Honors. The match was yesterday, Jan. 29.

North Phoenix

After going through their longest week of the season the previous week, the Falcons were ready to get back to business on the pitch.

The match got rolling with a goal from Hunter McAloon off a cross from Ryan Griggs, his first of three assists that night.

Along with Griggs, McAloon was another key player for the Falcons offensively that night.

“McAloon would put in another later on to give himself a brace,” head coach Matt Pugliano said. “Hunter has been doing an excellent job following up on shots and ‘cleaning up the trash’ (putting away rebounds).”

Caden Collins also earned a brace in the match and with Keeper Dylan Shipman leading the defense to another shut out, FHHS earned their 5-0 victory.

Anthem

Pugliano believes that his team came into the Jan. 24 match a little too sure of themselves.

“I think going in we had the mindset that this would be an easy victory,” Pugliano said. “So in the beginning we struggled to compete efficiently. We had several chances early on that we couldn't convert into goals and actually had a goal called back. These setbacks put us in a hole mentally that we barely came out of.”

The Falcons seemed to come out of it after Collins netted a goal right before halftime, but the Anthem offense persisted.

“Anthem would press the defense by sending the ball deep into our territory and then trying to run on to it,” Pugliano said. “This would eventually come to fruition as they tied it at 1-1.”

The Falcons didn’t give up, though, and a chip shot to the right corner from McAloon gave the Falcons their 2-1 victory.