Ironwood Ridge wins Roar Classic over Cactus Shadows
September 19, 2021 by Andy Morales, AZPreps365
The Ironwood Ridge girls continue their path towards an unprecedented third state championship in a row for a program from Southern Arizona by capturing the Millennium Roar Classic on Saturday. The 20-stroke victory came over Cactus Shadows, the team the Nighthawks defeated in 2019 and 2020 to win back-to-back state championships at the Omni Tucson National.
The Nighthawks made an early statement in August by defeating D-I power Xavier 593 to 607 to take the championship of the One-Off Invitational held at the Papago Golf Course located in Phoenix. As of this weekend, Ironwood Ridge has a 4.177 to 7.689 lead over Cactus Shadows in iW Rankings used for seeding at state. Xavier is sitting at 8.841 in D-I action.
Another D-I power, Hamilton, led Ironwood Ridge at the Roar Classic after the first round by two strokes but the Nighthawks put together a round of 286 on the par 72 course at the Sun City Country Club on day two for the win.
Individually, Hamilton junior Jennifer Seo shot a 3-under-par 141 to medal by two strokes over Liberty standout Mattie Frick and Paige Hammarstrom of Cactus Shadows. Frick won the D-I title last year and Seo took second. Hammarstrom came in 10th in D-II play. Pinnacle standout Carolyn Fuller came in with a 1-over 145 to take fourth place and 2018 state champion Mackenzie McRee of Salpointe came in fifth.
Nighthawk standout Celia Schrecker, Raina Ports and Makenna Brown shot 147 and Zoe Newell shot 148. Hannah Ports shot 151.
Hamilton took third at the Roar Classic, Salpointe came in fourth and Liberty took fifth.
Xavier, Cactus Shadows and Chaparral have all won at least three championships in a row with Cactus Shadows winning three from 2016 to 2018, Chaparral winning four from 1999 to 2002 and Xavier winning 16 from 1980 to 1995, 12 from 1998 to 2009 and eight from 2011 and 2018.