Volleyball season is never over here in Fountain Hills and the Lady Falcons on the Fountain Hills High School volleyball team are just fine with that.

The two-year running championship team only just solidified its roster on Aug. 9, but the squad has already been playing for months in one capacity or another.

“We’ve been playing all summer, basically a full season already,” said head coach, Pete McGloin. “I am really excited for how much we grew over the summer. I got to see how a lot of our pieces are going to play.”

Over the summer FHHS volleyball competed in a handful of tournaments around the state. They took home first in two tournaments including those hosted by Blue Ridge and Payson.

These summer opportunities to play volleyball have become a tradition for the girls on the team, a tradition that some senior Lady Falcons would rather experience than go on a vacation.

“We had some kids going into their senior year who could have gone on some trips,” McGloin explained. “But they were like ‘Mom and Dad, I can’t miss this, this is my senior year!’ Some of these summer experiences we had have been so much fun and there are so many memories. Yeah, the record doesn’t count but the memories stay with you.”

It is a point of pride to McGloin that he can make the program a fun experience for his players that they want to keep coming back to.

Summer play also allows the FHHS team to work out any kinks that might arise during the transition from playing beach volleyball to indoor volleyball.

“We are getting used to a different approach when hitting and working on some different ways you play defense but beach does nothing but help,” McGloin said. “There are some things you could do in the indoor that is illegal in beach, so we want them doing those things that they don’t want to do since they’re used to it being illegal. But for the most part our girls who were playing beach transition quickly into indoor.”

One big difference in indoor volleyball is that the whole team, even if a player is on the bench, has a role to play in the match.

“There are six players on the court and a whole bench that can communicate and be a part of the game,” McGloin said. “Whereas in beach we are not allowed to yell ins or outs to the players, there is a lot of communication and it is a lot louder inside. Everybody is involved and every role is huge. It’s one of the things I love the most.”

The Lady Falcons lost quite of few seniors last year but, combined, there is 16 years of varsity experience on this year’s team. McGloin wanted to help the team realize that even with talented seniors graduating there is still a lot of firepower on the roster.

“We’re loaded, I feel like,” McGloin said. “My goal over the summer was trying to help the players realize how loaded they are and how special they can be and I am really happy because I feel like we are coming along there.”

McGloin admits that after having such a successful run in both indoor and beach last year it can be hard to keep the momentum and drive on the team up.

To help make sure that his team doesn’t get too comfortable, McGloin makes sure that he is consistently letting them know where his expectations are.

“It really is just constant messaging in what our expectations are,” McGloin said. “Playing hard and doing little things that allow us to play hard. We all want to be our best so we have to find a way to motivate each other. If we get comfortable with doing the bare minimum or our past success, we are not going to be very good. There are a lot of things that go into our success.”

The volleyball squad’s first game is on Tuesday, Aug. 28. It is an away game against Benjamin Franklin.