The Foothills Composite Falcons football team was recognized by town council this week.

They were invited to Monday's council meeting to receive Sports Recognition Awards after their Tier I South final win in November.

The Falcons defeated L.C.I. 42-24 in the South final, advancing to the provincial championship for the first time in the team's history.

Sadly, they suffered a narrow 34-27 loss to the Salisbury Sabres for the title.

Still, their climb to the final was an achievement in and of itself, and council certainly deemed it cause for celebration.

They invited a few members of the team up to talk about their experiences.

"I'm really impressed with what our team accomplished this year, as we really became more of a family than we have been in the past couple years. We played for each other," Defensive Back Rylan Neish told council. "This year was a really fun year for me. I believe, for these guys as well, it was a really cool experience to go from not winning a single game in grade 10 to all of a sudden winning almost all of the games we played."

Fellow Falcon, Cornerback Boston Sanderson, shared a similar sentiment.

"It was awesome going zero-to-hero, basically. We couldn't pull it out in the end but I think we accomplished quite a bit this year and I'm really happy to be doing that since grade 10 with, basically, my family members."

The South final itself was a highlight for Neish.

"It was really fun facing L.C.I. again in our South finals, because they beat us in the regular season and we beat them to actually go to the championship, so it really showed who came out to play that game. It was fun to get our little revenge rematch against them."

Reflecting on the team's growth over the course of the season, Sanderson couldn't help but wonder how September's Battle for Okotoks might have turned out.

"I think we shocked a lot of people. I wish we got a second chance playing HTA, I feel like that story would've been a little bit different."

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