(Jayden Thoreson/Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

The most unpredictable game of the week came down to defense and experience. In years past, that description would have meant an Ironwood Ridge victory over Mica Mountain but the roles have been reversed with the Thunderbolts pulling out a 28-0 win on the road to open up the regular season.

Mica Mountain is young but experienced, having played a successful inaugural season last year that almost resulted in a playoff berth despite playing in only six games, and Ironwood Ridge has experience in age but limited experience on the field. According to first-year head coach Dale Stott, only one varsity player returned from last year which put the Nighthawks in a difficult position coming in.

(Dale Stott/Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

“This game was probably lost last spring when we had limited players,” Stott said. "This is basically a brand new team and many of our players have never played football before. We have rugby and lacrosse players. We had to scramble and I am proud of all of them.”

Stott replaced James Hardy, who is now coaching in Texas, and the graduation of 17 players combined with transfers to other schools and highly skilled players sticking with their committed collegiate sport over football amounted to almost 30 players leaving the program in one swoop. To even get to this point is a testament to Stott and the coaching crew he put together including legendary player and coach Will Kreamer.

On the other side, the Thunderbolts are led by another legend in Pat Nugent. Nugent lost one of the best defenders in the state (Kaspen Colbert) to injury but his young squad pursues with a purpose and tackles on first contact which limited the Nighthawks to around 100 yards of offense.

“We're pretty good on defense,” Nugent said. “So we knew going in our defense was going to have to carry us because we're young and they were nasty tonight.”

The Nighthawks started out with an opening drive that stalled at midfield but the program came up with the first turnover of the game after Basel Abdulhalim fell on a fumble to put Ironwood Ridge in excellent position at the Thunderbolt 24. A young and inexperienced defense might have folded in that situation but the Nighthawks were pushed back four yards from there and Mica Mountain took the ball back on downs. In retrospect, the game was decided on that drive.

Sophomore quarterback Jayden Thoreson engineered a 72-yard scoring drive that ended with a 16-yard scoring pass to Jonah Garcia as time expired in the first quarter. The Thunderbolts were up 7-0 in a game some predicted would go the other way and the defense put together another turnover on downs which led to a 19-yard scoring pass from Thoreson to Devin Hayward to give Mica Mountain a 14-0 lead with 3:35 left in the first half.

Still, a 14-point lead is not a big obstacle in high school and the Nighthawk defense forced a turnover on downs on the opening drive of the second half but a fumble turned momentum back to the Thunderbolts and Josiah Thornwell cashed in on a 23-yard run to give Mica Mountain a 20-0 lead with 4:26 left in the third quarter.

The Mica Mountain defense came up big again on the next drive and the Nighthawks were forced punt at their own 3-yardline. A miscue on the snap resulted in another turnover on downs and Thornwell rushed in from five yards out to put Mica Mountain up 26-0 and then Hayward hit Jacob Flores on a 2-point conversion for the 28-0 margin with 26.2 seconds left in the third.

Punts from both squads ruled the fourth quarter and Thoreson finished with 143 yards passing (13-21) with two touchdowns, Thornwell had 81 yards rushing with two TDs and Garcia had 55 yards receiving with a touchdown. The Nighthawks had limited production with Otto Hagele pulling in 34 yards receiving from Omar Robles and Hunter Rehrmann, who shared quarterbacking duties. Nasohn Jantz took most of the early carries for the Nighthawks.

“We had some athletes who were young,” Nugent added. “We have a sophomore quarterback and sophomore offensive linemen so it was just kind of like let's wait and see. Obviously we're excited about where we're going and we've got to keep building. We got some really tough games coming up and you know, we're going to work every day, and this was a good block that we want to put on a building and keep building.”

Ironwood Ridge travels to play Campo Verde on Friday, Sept. 9 and Mica Mountain will host Bradshaw Mountain that night. This game was played on a Thursday as part of the Coaches for Charity Kickoff Classic to help raise funds for scholarships in Southern Arizona. Sunnyside beat Desert View 16-6 in the other Coaches for Charity game of the night.