Even though Fountain Hills High School has been on winter break these past two weeks, the girls basketball team has continued to put in work on the court, earning a spot in the championships at the Chandler Prep Tournament.

The first game of the tournament was on Dec. 27 against St. David. The Lady Falcons won 50-48.

The next day, Dec. 28, FHHS played games against Payson and Northwest Christian. The Lady Falcons beat both teams, topping Payson 50-32 and Northwest Christian 26-21.

The championship game was against Florence on Dec. 29. FHHS narrowly lost the game by a final score of 44-43.

The Lady Falcons are playing three games this week, with the first being today, Jan. 9, against Northwest Christian at home starting at 5:30 p.m.

The second game is on Thursday, Jan. 10, and will be away at Gilbert Christian with a 5:30 p.m. tipoff. The final game of the week is on Saturday, Jan. 12, starting at 5 p.m. on the home court.

St. David

Head coach Mandy Baca said she thought the Lady Falcons had a “great weekend” playing through the Chandler Prep Tournament, but admits that things got off to a sluggish start.

“We were very rusty,” Baca explained. “We were coming off a few days break and were able to skirt out a win by two, but it wasn’t the prettiest win.”

The two leading scorers for the Falcons in this game were Jocelyn McCarthy with 22 points and Gabbi Coughlin with 15.

Payson

This wasn’t the Lady Falcons’ first game against Payson, who they previously lost to by 14 points.

So going into this game with a little more knowledge about their opponent, FHHS made some changes to its game plan.

“We talked about changing our defense up and running the floor a little bit more,” Baca said. “We also wanted to make the tall girl work for points while putting some pressures on their guards.”

The change-up worked, with the Lady Falcons outscoring Payson by 18 points and succeeding in keeping Payson’s top offensive player to only 13 points.

Northwest

Fountain Hills only had six hours in between the game with Payson and the next game against Northwest Christian.

“I brought the team back from Queen Creek, them go home for a few hours and then drove all the way back, but even with a break we were still gassed,” Bacca said.

To accommodate the worn-down team, the Lady Falcons switched from a man-to-man defense to a zone defense.

“It was nice to see that, even when the team was tired, they had the discipline to pull a win out,” Baca said. “Friday was a good day for us.”

Florence

Baca described the championship game as a “battle” between Florence and Fountain Hills.

“Florence had a six-point lead for a while, then we cut it,” Baca said. “Then we had an eight-point lead and they cut it. It kept going back and forth like that.”

Two things that contributed to the Lady Falcons’ close loss was a top player fouling out after inconsistent calls and more than a handful of missed free throws, Baca continued.

“Out of the last eight free throws we had, we made one,” Baca said. “I think it was a good lesson for the team. I’m always on them about free throws but I think it really sinks in when they’re in a situation where two more made free throws could have won the game.”