The crowd cheered as the Northwestern District semi-finals ended with girls aware of their loss but proud of their accomplishments. The Lady Falcons Basketball had many victories this season from forming a junior varsity (JV) team, which had been absent at FHS for about five years, to making it to districts for the first time in over 20 years. “Now everyone knows that our FHS girls’ basketball team is one of the top teams in our District,” said head coach Brain Foddrell.

With the growth of the program and an influx of freshmen this year, performance, as well as numbers, increased. The program had a total of 16 players this year, which allowed for a JV and varsity team. There were ten varsity players and eight JV players. “As a team, we really developed confidence and learned how to play the game of basketball as a team,” said Foddrell. 

Senior Tia Minor said that her love for the sport and desire to improve drives her to continue playing. “Even though I wasn’t the best in my freshman and sophomore years… I knew that if I put in hard work, I can be better… I am very persistent,” said Minor. “So if I want to become better, I will regardless of who’s trying to stop me or who leaves in the process.”

The varsity team’s overall season score of 14-10 carried them to the semi-finals where they lost 60-31 to James Wood. “All the players really played very hard and never gave up. Together as a team we are strong, and all the players are realizing this,” said Foddrell. “[It] is truly the reason why we played well.” 

Foddrell added, “They were driven to win games this year to bring excitement to girls basketball at FHS.”

Several of the players made it into the All-Northwestern District team, with Skylar Furr and Tia Minor being placed in the first team and Makayla Foddrell being placed in the second team. The girls are anticipating a great future for the Lady Falcons program while Foddrell has hopes for next year to grow the program and is expecting even more girls to participate.