The Fountain Hills High School baseball team beat region opponent Camp Verde twice last week. The Falcons extended their winning streak to six in a row, and they’ve won eight of their last nine games.

The recent success has propelled the Falcons to the No. 5 ranking in conference 3A. The Arizona Interscholastic Association does not count tournament games in a team’s record, so the Falcons are 8-1 and ranked above Scottsdale Christian Academy even though the No. 14 Eagles beat the Falcons in the Cougar Classic Tournament at the start of the season.

The No. 5 Falcons took care of business on the road and beat No. 26 Camp Verde (3-7) 21-0 in three innings on Monday, March 27. The Falcons weren’t as dominant on Thursday, March 20, but they still beat Camp Verde 11-4 to complete the season sweep over the Cowboys.

The Falcons had a very good offensive game at Camp Verde. The Gamechanger app tracks statistics during games, and head coach Bob Langer’s favorite statistic is quality at bats (QAB). There are six different options to earn a QAB, and the Falcons had 26 QABs out of 29 possible at bats on Monday.

Junior Ty Langer hit for the cycle and had hits on all four at bats at Camp Verde. Langer hit his second home run of the season and had three RBIs and four runs scored. Juniors Ty Flynn and Isiah Challman tied Langer for a team-high three RBIs.

Challman, a first-year Falcon due to transfer, made his second start of the season and hit a double and triple on .666 batting. Sophomore Lucas Grieco was sick and did not go on the road trip, so Challman filled in for him at third base. Challman also played catcher in place of Flynn after he was injured in the Falcons’ 4-3 win over Chino Valley on March 20.

“You can put him in the outfield, you can put him in the infield, he can even pitch,” Flynn said of Challman. “He’s pitched for JV, he’ll probably pitch for us on varsity. Knowing that if someone goes down, we have someone to step up. There’s not a lot of players like that, that can come in and play anywhere.”

Flynn had three hits, second only to Langer, and Challman and freshman Jack Irwin were the only other Falcons with multiple hits. The Falcons had one strikeout as a team, junior Kyan Taylor and senior Cy Dethlefs combined for a no-hitter and threw one strikeout each.

Senior Devyn Hernandez had a hit and an RBI, and he was walked three times. He scored four runs, and then led the team with three runs at home on Thursday. Hernandez also had two hits and an RBI in the 11-4 win on Thursday.

“Today, with them, it seemed like [Camp Verde] had a lot better of a game plan,” Hernandez said on Thursday. “They were a team today. They were doing what they were supposed to do. With us, we didn’t play our best at all. Hitting-wise, it was okay, could’ve done way better. Overall, it was a closer game than it should’ve been.”

The Falcons had 10 less hits as a team at home, and they let the Cowboys score first. Camp Verde went up 1-0 in the first inning, and the Falcons answered with three runs in the second.

Hernandez led off and reached first on an error. After a strikeout and two walks, Challman hit a sacrifice fly and Hernandez scored. Junior Nathan Hughes scored on a wild pitch, and then sophomore Zion Sidhu hit a double and brought sophomore Cooper Loyet home before a groundout ended the inning.

Sophomore Aiden Cronican sealed the game with a two RBI double in the fifth inning. Irwin and senior Tim Lamar had already scored in the inning, and the bases were loaded with Hernandez on third, senior Zach Mendello on second and Hughes on first. Cronican hit his double in place of Loyet, and the Falcons went up 7-1.

Hughes scored one more time in the fifth inning, and the Cowboys answered with three runs in the sixth inning. The Falcons put Taylor on the pitcher’s mound to close out the last two innings and they also scored three more runs in the bottom of the sixth to answer back.

Junior David Goldapper threw six strikeouts in three innings as the starting pitcher, and junior Lucas Williams threw four strikeouts in two innings. Taylor struck out four of the last five Camp Verde batters to end the game.

According to Langer, the No. 5 ranking is the highest the Falcons have been ranked since he’s been with the program. The Falcons went 8-9 and lost the play-in game to make state playoffs last year, but they grew from the experience since they only lost three seniors to graduation last spring.

Flynn said the Falcons can reach an even higher rank and Hernandez said all they need to do is focus on winning. Hernandez said that Langer hasn’t even talked about the ranking with the team, and he thinks that keeps them focused.

The Falcons hosted No. 38 Wickenburg (1-7) after press time on Monday, April 3. They travel to Wickenburg on Thursday, April 6, to play at 3:45 p.m. The Falcons also play at No. 32 Chino Valley (3-7) this Saturday, April 8, at 1:15 p.m.

The Falcons’ biggest regular season test will be the season series with defending state champion No. 2 Northwest Christian (7-0). The Falcons will travel to the Crusaders next Tuesday, April 11, to play at 3:45 p.m.

“We’re looking forward to playing everyone on our schedule right now,” Langer said. “We think we can win every game. That’s what we do every day, try to win every game.”