Last week was a test of endurance for the Fountain Hills High School boys volleyball team, which played three matches back to back, two of which lasted five sets.

The Falcons’ first match last week was on April 2 against American Leadership Academy Gilbert. FHHS lost the match in three sets, 12-25, 16-25 and 15-25.

The next day, April 3, FHHS played against Marcos de Niza and won the match in five sets, 19-25, 16-25, 25-16, 25-23 and 16-14.

In their last match of the week, on April 4, the Falcons played against Seton Catholic and lost the match after battling for five sets.

The Falcons will have two home games this week. The first game was yesterday, April 9, against Horizon Honors.

The next home game is on Thursday, April 11, against Arizona College Prep. The match will begin at 5:30 p.m.

ALA

According to head coach Halle Harker, the same thing that happened to her team when they played Campo Verde occurred against American Leadership Academy; they let the caliber of their opponents go to their heads.

“It was the same story with another team,” Harker said. “We still aren’t rising to the occasion when we play teams that have more experience than us. In those games we stop focusing on our side of the court, always worried about what the opponent is going to do to a point where we let them control the game.”

Harker believes that one silver lining to the match was the team’s ability to rally after losing players on the roster.

“We had a few guys out that match because of other commitments and one of our captains, Andrew O’Neil, got injured,” Harker said. “The guys did a good job of stepping up to fill the spots.”

Marcos de Niza

Harker said she was happy to see her team earn another win on their record but knows that the team will have to keep working to earn better results.

“A win is easy to look at in a positive light but there is still so much room for improvement,” Harker said. “That is what I told the guys after the match.”

According to Harker, the Falcons made several mental errors and allowed points that prolonged the game.

“They kind of just had this attitude of, ‘We can get the next point, we got this,’” Harker said. “That is not the way to play to win.”

Seton Catholic

Harker said that at the end of the match against Seton Catholic, she and the team were altogether frustrated with a tough loss.

“It was the same thing that happened in the Marcos game,” Harker said. “We lost the first set but came back to win the second. Then we got that same attitude of, ‘We got this.’”

The Falcons won the third set, lost the fourth, then lost the fifth set and with it the match.

“We could have won the fourth but, again we let all these errors happen because we thought that we’d just win in the fifth set,” Harker said. “The team I saw play in the second set was not the same team as the one I saw in the fifth.”