The Falcons had a big year in 2014, boasting a pair of state champions in the girls basketball team and the girls soccer team.

Several other sports made it into post-season play, with individual awards aplenty being passed out to Fountain Hills High School athletes throughout the past 12 months for all-section and all-state honors.

Following is the first in a two-part series looking back at the past year in high school sports.

Girls basketball

State champions.

Little else needs to be said to highlight just how well the 2013-14 girls basketball season went for the Lady Falcons, a 25-3 run that began in late November with a 49-31 win over Estrella Foothills and ended with a 51-36 victory over Valley Christion to bring home the Division III crown.

Of the Falcons’ three rare losses last season, two of them actually came at the hands of Valley Christian, breaking up an otherwise nearly flawless run.

It seems fitting, then, that the local squad would finally repay that debt in the state championship, handily besting the same team by nearly 20 points to earn the title.

Looking back over the past season, coach Mandy Baca said she enjoyed “watching the girls really come together and achieve something that some of them have worked for since seventh grade.”

Girls soccer

Seasons can’t get much better than the 2013-14 run experienced by the high school girls soccer team, ending at 12-0 in sectional play, 20-3-1 overall, a sectional title and a state crown, a first for the local program.

The Lady Falcons’ season began with a 2-0 win over Mingus in the Horizon tournament. That was the team’s first taste of victory on the season, a flavor they would become quite familiar with in their nearly flawless run, ending with a big 11-game winning streak that included a 2-0 victory over Seton Catholic in the championship game.

“The 2013-14 season was a highly successful season, not just in terms of soccer accomplishments,” said head coach Alison Mabery.

“The girls learned how to play numerous positions on the field, stay mentally fit when calls or games didn’t go their way, and really learned that working together to achieve a common goal is best done through teamwork, not individuals.”

Boys basketball

With Matt Keating taking over for his first year as head coach of the FHHS boys basketball team, the team went on a 7-4 run in section play through 2013-14 and 15-11 overall.

The season began with a narrow 69-64 win on the road against Independence in late November. The majority of the season that followed was a back and forth affair, trading a few wins for a couple of losses along the way.

The biggest winning streak of the season began in late January as the Falcons strung together six back-to-back victories to finish off the regular season, capping off the run with a nail-biter 62-60 win over Northland Prep on the road.

The final game of the season somehow managed to be an even closer contest as the Falcons exited the state tournament with a 63-62 loss to Florence.

Boys soccer

It was another big year for the boys soccer team, going 10-4 in region play, 17-7 overall.

The Falcons’ season began with a 2-0 win over Estrella Foothills, kicking off an early-season five-game winning streak that included victories over Bourgade Catholic and Phoenix Christian with the Falcons having at least 10 goals on the board.

The local squad finally dropped their first match in a close 2-1 loss to Desert Ridge in December, setting a pace for the entire year that saw the Falcons winning the majority of their matches with the occasional defeat peppered in.

The regular season ended with back-to-back 9-0 wins over the teams from Veritas Prep and Tempe Prep. The Falcons bested Walden Grove 5-3 in the opening round of the state tournament before being ousted 4-0 by the eventual champions, Coronado, in the quarterfinals.

Wrestling

The 2013-14 season was good to the Falcon wrestling squad, a team that started off strong in early December, battled numerous tough opponents over the next several months and even managed to send a dozen kids on to the state tournament.

The season began with wins over Paradise Valley and Cactus Shadows on the road, starting a year of big wins for the Falcons as the local squad went on to string together an 18-8 team dual record.

The Falcons went on to send 12 athletes to the state tournament after finishing ninth in a field of 47 for Division IV. In total, three local grapplers managed to visit the podium at the final meet of the year with Peter Carillo taking second, Josh Vaught taking third and Kawika Reid taking third in their respective state divisions.

Baseball

Going 9-1 in section play and 23-5 overall, it’s impossible to deny the success of the Fountain Hills High School baseball team’s 2014 season.

The Falcons’ run began with an 8-4 win over Apache Junction to kick off the regular season and the locally-hosted Falcon Invitational, a tournament where the home team went undefeated.

Losses came sporadically throughout the season, between long series of back-to-back wins. The team’s biggest chain of victories came during the heart of the season in the form of a 10-game streak.

Unfortunately, the two top honors for the season were not to be.

The Falcons lost to Chino Valley, similarly undefeated in section play, in the final game of the regular season, taking second place in the section.

The Falcons turned around and bested the same team by the same score a week later in the state tournament, eventually making its way into the semifinals.

The Falcons’ season came to a close in the postseason with a 1-0 loss to eventual state champions Palo Verde, just one game shy of competing for a state crown repeat.

Softball

The 2014 season was full of ups and downs for the high school softball team as the local ladies managed to pull together a 5-3 section showing, 13-15 overall.

When they were on their game, the Falcons were unstoppable, besting numerous opponents by more than 10 runs throughout the season.

On the other side of the same coin, however, were games plagued by numerous fielding errors and a lack of hot bats.

The Falcons began their 2014 run in late February with a staggering 25-2 win over Coronado before falling to Phoenix Country Day School 15-5 in game two.

The team bounced back quickly, though, going on a four-game win streak and handily topping teams from Joy Christian, Salt River, Desert Christian and Mogollon.

The Lady Falcons had another five-game win streak just past the mid-season mark before going on a 1-5 run into the season’s conclusion.

The year ended with an 11-0 loss to Chino Valley with the Falcons’ overall record falling shy of a shot at the state tournament.

Track

The Falcon track squad hit the ground running during the 2014 season, smashing multiple school records and even bringing home a few medals from the state event including a championship finish from Trista Smith in the girls’ pole vault and a second place overall finish for the ladies.

The local squad spent all of their time on the road this season with no home meets hosted out of the local field.

The lack of a home track advantage didn’t seem to slow down the high school athletes, though, as new head Coach Todd Brecto called the 2014 run an “amazing season.”

Because of that dedication to continued personal improvement, Brecto said the Falcons had an exceptional year, one he expects to see continue in years to come as the FHHS program builds to an elite level.