The Fountain Hills High School beach volleyball team is in the final leg of the regular season. They went on the road the past two days for road games, and they end their regular season with a doubleheader against Payson today, Wednesday, April 12.

The first match with the Longhorns will begin at 1:30 p.m. at Golden Eagle Park, and the second match will begin at 4 p.m. The Falcons will celebrate senior night and honor their only senior and former Payson student, Liv Sopeland.

“I’m excited because a lot of people I know from Payson will be here, so they’ll be a part of my senior night,” Sopeland said. “That’ll be cool.”

According to head coach Peter McGloin, Sopeland never played volleyball until she moved to Fountain Hills as a sophomore. Sopeland has grown as a player over the years, and McGloin thinks she’ll surprise her old classmates with how much she’s grown in the past year alone.

This year, Sopeland has played more than twice the amount of varsity matches she played as a junior. At the time of writing, Sopeland and the Falcons have lost their two most recent games to top ranked teams by slim margins, but Sopeland still has a winning record at 5-4.

“I think confidence is key for us, because when we’re confident we play so much better and we’re talking and that’s when we’re at our best,” Sopeland said. “So, if we keep our confidence, win or lose, we’re good.”

The Falcons lost 3-2 to Northwest Christian on Friday, March 31, and they lost 3-2 to No. 3 Arcadia last Wednesday, April 5. Northwest Christian has moved up from No. 8 to No. 4 since they played the Falcons, and Fountain Hills stayed at No. 11 after both losses.

“We want that competition,” McGloin said. “It makes us better and we need one of those signature wins. For us to beat a team like that automatically gets us into the playoffs. It was great, we didn’t have anything to lose today. We had everything to gain, but we had to play the game the right way to compete.”

The Falcons pushed both teams to their limits, and McGloin said they could’ve won if the ball had bounced their way a few more times. The Falcons only played one team ranked in the top 15 in their first seven games, but their recent tough matches are helping prepare the girls for playoffs.

Juniors Bree March and Savannah Peterson pushed their match in the five pair to a tiebreaker set, their fourth of the season. They lost a close first set, 21-18, and then took over the second set to win 21-12. The pair dealt with red cards and miscommunication from the referees in the third set and lost 15-10.

Sopeland and junior Elle Schulze kept pace with the Titans but fell short at four. They lost 21-19, 21-17, and sophomore Lucia Kalmbach and junior Sophie Wickland lost 21-10, 21-19 in the third pair.

Sophomores Jocelyn Bloedel and Kitrick Garman improved to 8-0 as a pair and beat Arcadia 24-22, 21-17. McGloin said the pair plays hard all the time and the don’t turn into individuals on the sand when they face adversity. He also said the pair has grown by leaps and bounds this year.

Juniors Sydney Boeshans and Bella Garman won the top pair through medical forfeiture. An Arcadia player appeared concussed after she hit her head on the sand and was slow to get up, but she was treated and walked off the court under her own power.

Boeshans and Garman lost the first set 21-15, and there were only a few points into the second set when the forfeiture happened. The pair lost their first set to Northwest Christian before coming back to win in a tiebreaker set last week.

The Falcons lost two in a row, but McGloin thinks those losses actually built momentum for the team. The players have realized they can keep up with anybody, no matter their ranking, and they can gather even more momentum this week ahead of the playoffs.

Earlier this week, the Falcons traveled to No. 31 Odyssey Institute on Monday, April 10, and they traveled to No. 8 Saguaro on Tuesday, April 11. Today, Wednesday, April 12, the Falcons host No. 22 Payson twice.

The top 16 teams make the playoffs, and the top eight teams host the first round of the playoffs next Monday, April 17. The Falcons have an opportunity to pad their ranking with four games this week and enter the playoffs on a win streak.

“We’re starting to show it when the stress is on in the big games,” McGloin said. “It’s just really exciting, but we still have a lot of work to do. We’re going to have to win those four games next week to guarantee ourselves the playoffs. We know we can, and [if] we do that, we’re a dangerous team.”