It was slow and almost deliberately so. Salpointe’s 34-9 win over Ironwood Ridge at home Friday night cannot be defined by that final margin of victory but rather by a defense that stopped a team that has arguably the most talented group of offensive weapons from Southern Arizona on one roster this fall – a team that showed what it was capable of on an opening drive that took nine minutes off the clock but settled for a field goal to go up 3-0 on the Lancers.

That kick from Travis Rich put the Nighthawks up in the latter stages of the first quarter, and it looked like it might be a long night for Salpointe from there, but Ironwood Ridge failed to take control of the game after recovering a Lancer fumble at midfield in the opening moments of the second quarter. The Lancer offense seemed to be stuck in the same holding pattern as it was in the second half of its game against Cienega when the Bobcats almost erased a 23-0 deficit in the final quarter of that contest last week but an interception from Michael Aguirre put the Lancers back in business and all momentum by the Nighthawks was lost.

Owen Lynch connected on a 33-yard field goal to tie the game up 3-3 with 5:45 left in the first half and then disaster came in the form of a bad snap on a punt to give Salpointe another short field and Anthony Wilhite punched the ball in from 2 yards out for the 10-3 halftime lead.

The Lancers had less than 100 yards of offense in the first half but a short field requires less ball movement and the Salpointe defense came alive in the second half and the game changed. Lynch connected on a 41-yarder to put the Lancers up 13-3 with 10:51 left in the third quarter and the Nighthawks were forced to punt less than two minutes later. Dailan Goodman took advantage of another short field and his 2-yard dash put Salpointe up 20-3 with 6:11 left in the quarter and the game appeared to be getting out of reach at that point due to the continued pressure coming from Davian Miranda Carrasco and Joey Sumlin up the middle and Elijah Rushing on the end.

“I think what I love about this team so much is that after the second quarter we came out of the dungeon, and we knew we had a not so good first quarter and second quarter,” Carrasco said. “We said we're going to come out and we're going to give it all we got, we were firing on all cylinders. Defense started clicking. I think we all just needed to calm down a little bit, but I think it goes to show that we're growing, we're going, and it's an amazing feeling. I love this defense.”

The Nighthawks were forced to punt once again and Treyson Bourguet connected on a 24-yard TD pass to Gage Felix for a 27-3 lead with about a minute left the third. Bourguet finished with 99 yards passing on 7 of 16 attempts but it was his constant blocking downfield that opened up lanes for Wilhite 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Wilhite finished with 89 yards rushing on 15 carries which shows you how little offense was needed in the win thanks to the attacking defense.

That defense led to another score and Elias Roberts ran one in from 8-yards out to put the Lancers up 34-3 with 5:21 left but Jordan Thomas capped off a scoring drive from the Nighthawks on a short run of his own to cut the lead down to 34-9 with 2:31 left.

Thomas finished with 67 yards on 19 carries unofficially, which is near his average, but an all-star cast of weapons were held at bay by the Lancer defense for the most part and it’s hard to imagine that happening again to the likes of senior QB Tyler Haynie and his enviable receiving crew consisting of Hudson Thompson, Andrew Cain and Luke Fanelli.

Ironwood Ridge fell to 2-2 on the year and head coach James Hardy will need his offense back on the field next week when his team travels to district rival Canyon del Oro. The Dorados picked up a win Friday night against Catalina Foothills to improve to 1-3 this fall. After that, the Nighthawks will need to survive what has become a very difficult 5A Sonoran Region consisting of Cienega (1-2), Sunnyside (3-1) and Marana (4-0). The Tigers have an excellent shot at qualifying for the Open Division so that Nov. 12 game could eb a huge one for the conference.

Salpointe (3-0) has a different set of problems up ahead and it all begins with a trip to Scottsdale to play program nemesis, Saguaro. The Sabercats dopped a rare 27-26 decision to Chaparral Friday night to go to 2-1 on the year and it’s only the fourth loss by Saguaro to a team from Arizona since Sept. 4 on 2015.

That 64-4 record against high schools in Arizona includes a semifinal victory over Salpointe in 2016 and championship game wins in 2017 and 2018. The two teams were set to meet in the opening round of the Open Division last year but the Sabercats were forced to forfeit that game due to COVID concerns which helped lead the Lancers to back-to-back semifinal finishes in the Open Division and the fifth semifinal finish in a row overall dating back to 2016.

“I’ll tell you what, right there in that huddle, we were already talking about that game,” Carrasco added. “It's time to get to work tomorrow. Get to work in the weight room come Monday.”

Landon Billings breaks on the outside for the Nighthawks. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)