The sand volleyball season came to a close last week in the state tournament with the Falcons besting St. Mary’s and Valley Vista before falling in the semi-finals to Scottsdale Prep.

Day One

The Falcons entered the season-ending sand volleyball tournament as the number six seed, beginning their run through the two-day event on Tuesday, April 8, with an opening round win against the number 11 team from St. Mary’s, 4-1. The Falcons followed that with a big win against the number three team from Valley Vista.

“I thought we had a great day on Tuesday,” said head coach Brennan O’Connor.

“We were able to pull off an upset against Valley Vista, who had beaten us the week prior to the tournament.”

The Falcons actually started the match down 2-0, but came back to win the final three matches and claim their 3-2 victory.

“It started with Paige Greenly and Reagan Chalmers getting a huge win for us,” O’Connor said.

“They played their best match of the season and it gave us a lot of momentum going into our final two matches. Those two really stepped up their game and the rest of the team fed off of that.”

Katie Paulsen and Kelly Pederson won the next match by a score of 2-0, which O’Connor called another big win for the team.

“They had lost their match to Valley Vista the previous week, but they came out strong and played really well to get us the win,” he added.

Finally, Jalin Yoder and Gabby Mei capped off the match with a win at 2-1.

“Those two have continued to play great volleyball throughout the season and consistently get us a win,” O’Connor said.

“[Beating] Valley Vista was a great win for our team and it was the most exciting matches I have seen in sand volleyball the last couple of years.”

Day Two

The final day of the tournament saw the Lady Falcons entering the semi-final round against the number two seed from Scottsdale Prep, going on to lose a 4-1 match that O’Connor said was much closer than the score might lead one to believe.

“Amanda Barbagallo and McKenna Schultz played great and gave us our only win for the match,” he added.

“I was really impressed with the way they fought back and came from behind to win their match.”

O’Connor said that the next two matches produced opportunities for the Falcons to claim a win, but the matches simply didn’t quite pan out that way.

“The pair of Reagan Chalmers and Paige Greenly and the pair of Katie Paulsen and Kelly Pederson had set point in their games but couldn’t get the last point to pull out the win,” he explained.

“We were up 20-18 and 20-19 in those games, but Scottsdale Prep was able to fight back and get the win.”

Jalin Yoder and Gabby Mei also lost a close match, the first time in two years this duo has lost a match to a team that wasn’t Xavier.

“We lost by a team score of 4-1, but we could just as easily have won 4-1,” O’Connor said.

“Overall, it was a great tournament for the team and every pairing played well. I was pleased with the effort and improvement we made throughout the season. We have a lot of returning players for next year, so hopefully we can continue to improve and make it back to the championship next season.”