Catalina Foothills opened up the winter season with a convincing 7-0 win over Ironwood Ridge at home Tuesday night. A power in the 4A Conference, the Falcons moved up to the 5A Conference after back-to-back state runner-up finishes in 2019 and 2020.

The Falcons have eight state championships and four second place trophies dating back to 2002 but the last state championship came in 2013 under the guidance of Charlie Kendrick. Dave Lemon led the program to a second place finish in 2019, a 2-1 overtime loss to Salpointe, and then Sou Moussa-Torres led the team to the runner-up spot last winter, a loss to Flagstaff in PK’s (4-2).

Moussa-Torres lost Hannah Draper (18 goals, 10 assists) and Rebecca Borrows (5 goals) to graduation and Ellie Robinson (13 goals, 11 assists) transferred to Pusch Ridge for her senior season but standout keeper Flavia Burrell returns for her senior year along with eight other standouts including forward Caitlyn Maher.

Maher was all over the box in the first half against the Nighthawks and she recorded three assists and scored two goals to give her squad a commanding 5-0 lead at the break. Maher found Katelyn Kelch in the 16th, Emma Nance hit Maher in the 20th, Maher found Solei Moton in the 23rd, Maher scored on a rebound in the 30th and Maher passed off to Catherine Bennett in the 31st for the 5-0 lead.

The Falcons took 14 of their 21 shots in the first half and Nighthawks standout keeper Kelli Suckell picked up seven of her 12 saves in the half. Ironwood Ridge had difficulty on the offensive end and Burrell was only called into action twice in the second half. Burrell’s sister Uriah Burrell hit Bea Johnson on a corner kick in the 61st and Rylie Crane had an unassisted goal in the 70th for the 7-0 final.

The lack of firepower from the Nighthawks can be attributed to the loss of 12 seniors in 2019, including Isabella Santavicca, and the loss of eight seniors last year, including top defender Shana Brown. Still, Sean Watkins managed to guide his team to a state runner-up finish in the 5A Conference as a No. 10 seed last winter. It was perhaps his best coaching performance and the run capped off the fifth semifinal appearance in a row for the Nighthawks.

Only the top 16 teams in the 4A, 5A and 6A Conferences will qualify for the state playoffs this year so the loss of the play-in tournament will make things tight for a lot of teams. In fact, five lower-ranked teams from 4A to 6A made the state playoffs last year with a win in the play-in tournament. That will not happen this year.

Flagstaff (2-0) and Salpointe (0-0) remain in the 4A Conference but defending 5A state champion Casteel (5-0) and 2019 state champion Campo Verde (3-1) are huge roadblocks for teams trying to break through this year. 

Catalina Foothills travels to Flowing Wells (0-1) on Thursday and Ironwood Ridge will host Marana (1-0) on the same night.