The Fountain Hills High School girls basketball team looks a little different following the loss of three big seniors last season, but head coach Mandy Baca said she is certain that this new squad is capable of reaching the same heights.

FHHS girls basketball’s first game of the season will be next Tuesday, Nov. 26, against Scottsdale Christian Academy. The game will be at Fountain Hills High School and starts at 5:30 p.m.

Baca said that she had an influx of girls try out for the team this year.

“We have a much larger team than we did last year, about 18 girls out,” Baca said. “It’ll be nice because we will be able to have a true JV and a true varsity, so that will be helpful. We have a good mix between young and old, too. We have six seniors, six freshmen and then three juniors and three sophomores.”

With this increase in players, Baca’s goal for the team as of right now it to get her players to behave as a unit.

“The mix of players is good in its own way and we did have our best practice as a group the other day, but I think right now cohesiveness is a goal,” Baca explained. “Things like being able to read each other and knowing where to go. So reaching that level of communication throughout the team is the goal right now.”

One major shake-up to the team this year was the loss of Jocelyn McCarthy, Lauren Schultz and Gabbi Coughlin, three of the Lady Falcons’ leaders in points.

With those three graduated, there is a bit of a leadership void that needs to be filled on the team.

“The seniors coming up this year, out of the six of them, they have all done a good job leading,” Baca said. “We played some summer ball and you could tell they were kind of picking up that leadership role left by last year’s three seniors.”