Ironwood Ridge improved to 5-2 in ranking games after the Nighthawks beat Flowing Wells 68-41 at home Tuesday night. The Nighthawks competed at the 5A level last year and the program struggled with a 2-16 record, dropping the last 11 games of the year, but a move to the 4A Conference this winter, combined with a new coaching staff, appears to have the program moving in a different direction.

Former University of Arizona basketball player Justin Coleman is the new head coach of the Nighthawks and he comes in with plenty of coaching mentors to draw upon.

“I played for Anthony Grant (Alabama), Avery Johnson (Alabama) and Sean Miller (Arizona) and then I was a graduate assistant at Arizona, director of operations at Tennessee Tech, with operations at Tennessee and with player development in the NBA (Jazz).”

Miller told Coleman to “just stay the course” if he wanted to make coaching a career and a stint at the high school level is a step almost every legend has made in the past.

“There’s a lot of young talent,” Coleman said on the high school level. “They need support, they need coaching and they need mentors.”

The scoring for the Nighthawks was spread out against Flowing Wells with Coleman substituting his players in and out due to an early 27- 8 lead in the first quarter and 47-13 at the half. Still, freshman Luca Anderson hit four 3-pointers to lead the Nighthawks with 12 points, Carter Brown added 11, Josiah Adonu had nine, Kyler Holthaus added eight and Landon Briones and David Baba scored seven each.

“We have a group of guys who love each other, love the game, and we are going to compete.” Coleman added.

The Caballeros are 0-8 in ranking games this year under former Catalina Foothills standout Sean Spiece and the team is looking to get more experience at the Pima College Aztec Classic starting on Thursday, Dec. 19 against Santa Rita (3-4). The Nighthawks are also taking part in the tournament taking place at Pima West and the first game on the schedule will be against Palo Verde (6-1) on Thursday.

Gabriel Hernadez scored 13 points for Flowing Wells and Jose Cureses added seven at Ironwood Ridge.

Sean Spiece will lead his Caballeros to the Pima College Aztec Classic this week. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)