The Fountain Hills High School boys basketball team won its biggest game of the season last Saturday, Feb. 19, 73-71 over Chinle in double overtime. Sophomore Mitchell Perkins had a game high 26 points, but he fouled out in the fourth quarter, and the Falcons had to dig deep in order to advance to their next big game, the state quarterfinals on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

As the No. 5 seed, Fountain Hills hosted No. 12 Chinle, but it didn’t feel like a regular home game for the Falcons. Junior Luke Bloedel said the majority of the fans were there for Chinle, which helped the Wildcats flip momentum and come back from being down as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter.

The noise from the crowd didn’t bother Perkins, and from the beginning he made his presence felt. The underclassman scored six points in the first quarter, and the Falcons led 13-7 heading into the second quarter. Perkins only scored one basket in the second quarter, but the Falcons led 27-16 at halftime.

“He was our work horse,” head coach Jeff Bonner said about Perkins. “He was just putting the ball in the bucket in all kinds of different ways. Right hand, or left hand, he was just being strong for us.”

The Falcons outscored the Wildcats 12-11 in the third quarter. Perkins had eight and senior Alex Rieck added the other four points. The Falcons were up 39-27, but everyone but Perkins was struggling to score.

Perkins added 10 more points to his total in the fourth quarter, but he fouled out near the end. The Falcons led 51-44 with 2:44 left, but Chinle made it a one-point game with 16 seconds left.

“[Perkins] fouled out, and kind of what we were doing offensively we couldn’t go to anymore,” Bonner said. “Their press [defense] started working a little more and frustrating our guys a little bit. They weren’t letting us run our sets and we weren’t necessarily breaking the press to score; we were trying to break the press to run our offense, which is what we coached our guys to do, so it’s not to their fault at all…It is what it is, and it was hard to find a bucket.”

The Falcons made it 55-53 with a free throw, but Chinle caught a lucky break. According to Bonner, the refs called a technical foul on Chinle in the last 10 seconds of regulation because Chinle had six players on the court. Bonner and the rest of the Falcons wanted to put the game away with some free throws, but the refs overturned the call after a huddle and Chinle was given the ball right under their basket.

The Wildcats forced overtime, and the Falcons had to find a way to regain the lead and their composure. That was harder after senior Xavier Mike fouled out in the first overtime, but junior Aiden Logan stepped up in the point guard position and every other Falcon found a way to contribute, too.

Logan scored nine points in the game, and he made the most crucial three-pointer of the night. Thanks to a steal by sophomore Keaton Ort in the last few seconds of overtime, Logan was able to send the game to double overtime.

“They were up by four, and under their own basket,” Bonner said. “[Ort] made a terrific tip on an inbound from them and grabbed the ball and somehow managed to call a timeout at the same time. We were able to draw up a play. [Logan] was like ‘coach, let me come off the down screen as a wrinkle in the play,’ and he came off the down screen and he was pretty open. He shot the ball up, and we could tell it was going a little right, but he ended up banking that thing in to send us to double overtime. It was just an amazing sequence of events.”

Logan was fouled and injured on his shot, but senior Jared Reichler came in to hit the free throw to send the game into double overtime. Bonner said the Falcons had a different feel to them in the last period, and it all started because Rieck set the tone on the jump ball.

“Absolutely, it wasn’t even close who was going to win that jump ball,” Bonner said. “It led to [Rieck] getting to the free throw line multiple times and I would say it led to us winning the game. Just the fight those guys had…Great teams have the ability to overcome adversity, and if there was anything going on out there all throughout that game, it was adversity.”

Mike, Rieck and Reichler were the only Falcons with previous playoff experience, but the three only combined for 15 points. Younger players like Perkins, Ort and Logan shined on the big stage, and Luke Bloedel was another Falcon to step up in overtime. Bloedel only scored six points, but four of them came in the second overtime.

Yesterday, Tuesday, Feb. 22, the Falcons played a familiar team in the quarterfinals. The Falcons beat the Crusaders both times in the regular season, 50-28 on Jan. 18 and 62-39 on Feb. 4, but the No. 13 Northwest Christian Crusaders pulled off a 57-44 upset victory over No. 4 Yuma Catholic this past weekend.

If the Falcons beat Northwest Christian and advance, the state semi-finals will be this Friday, Feb. 26, at either 6 or 7:30 p.m. at the Arizona Veteran's Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. The state finals will be held at the same location on Saturday, Feb. 25, at 6 p.m.

“The old saying is it’s always hard to beat a team three times,” Bonner said. “I think we’re ready for anything we come up against. It’ll just be about the guys continuing to fight. I hope it’s a pretty game, but I’m not expecting any game to be pretty from this point on. It's win or go home time.”