The Fountain Hills High School baseball team pulled off a close win and suffered two losses last week.

FHHS’ first game of the week was against Northwest Christian on March 5. The Falcons lost the game by a narrow final score of 7-6.

The team’s next game was on March 7 against Odyssey Institute, where the Falcons won by another close outcome, 8-7.

On March 9 the Falcons played their last game before spring break against Winslow and lost 16-9.

Fountain Hills baseball has no games this week and will return to the field on March 20 to play against Payson, Coronado and Pusch Ridge Christian Academy.

Northwest

Head coach Joe Merklin said he was impressed with the resilience his team showed in the game against Northwest Christian.

“We got down early in the game, but the guys were able to battle back to tie the game 6-6,” Merklin said. “It didn’t go our way but the kids showed a lot of heart against a solid program.”

Northwest Christian jumped out to an early lead after scoring two runs in the first inning.

FHHS would remain scoreless until the fourth inning, but really came alive in the fifth when they scored three more.

Despite scoring two runs in the sixth to tie the game, the Falcons were unable to match Northwest Christian’s one run in the seventh.

Odyssey Institute

The game against Odyssey shaped up in similar fashion to the previous outing, with the Falcons mounting a comeback in later innings.

Despite scoring the first run in the third, FHHS fell behind Odyssey when they put up five runs in the fourth.

Fountain Hills would score three that inning to make it a one run game at 5-4.

At the top of the seventh Odyssey scored two runs, putting Fountain Hills in a make or break situation in the final inning at bat.

“The bases were loaded and there were no outs,” Merklin said. “Jackson Lindsey got up to bat and hit a walk off triple for us to win the game.”

Winslow

The Falcons’ game against Winslow was full of bad breaks, as Merklin puts it.

For starters, a Falcon lost a tooth when he lost a pop-fly in the sun and, in a particularly rough fifth inning, Winslow scored 10 runs on FHHS, put the Falcons in a hole too deep to get out of before the end of the game.

One bright spot in the game, according to Merklin, was the pitching.

“Cole Lupien finished the game for us with two scoreless innings,” Merklin said. “So that is three solid senior pitchers we have and, with a ton of younger sophomores and juniors, we’ve got some arms on the team.”

Merklin said he was proud of the team’s ability to battle back in last week’s games.

“I told the team this on Saturday,” Merklin said. “That they are a great group of players who don’t get down on themselves, never quit and find a way to string some hits together. They might get in a hole sometimes, but good things happen to guys like that.”