No. 2 Catalina Foothills blanked No.5 Ironwood Ridge 9-0 on Thursday to improve to 13-0 on the year and a perfect 7-0 in Division II, Section VII. Ironwood Ridge is now 12-1 overall and 6-1 in section play.

The Falcons have 17 state championships including nine straight from 2014 to 2023 (there were no state tournaments in 2020). AZ College Prep beat Catalina Foothills in the D-II semifinal round last year and then Salpointe in the state final but the Knights (10-3) are competing in D-I this year.

Catalina Foothills ends the regular season against D-I power No. 2 Brophy (13-1) at home next Tuesday. Brophy beat Catalina Foothills 5-4 last year in Phoenix and the loss broke a 44 match streak without a loss by the Falcons under former head coach Jeffry Bloomberg, who retired after last season with seven state championships and a 131-3 record.

Bloomberg came to Catalina Foothills after a Hall of Fame career in South Dakota and first-year head coach Ben Loeb comes in with 19 state championships from Missouri. Loeb coached the Canyon View girls to a 16-1 record last spring before making the move to Catalina Foothills.

Ironwood Ridge will host D-III No. 12 Sabino (5-4) on Monday to end the regular season under head coach Pam Reavis, who coach the Canyon del Oro girls to a state title in 1980 and a runner-up finish in 2007.

The team state tournaments are slated to start on Tuesday, April 29 for girls and April 30 for boys and May 2 for individual play. Catalina Foothills senior Austin Cohen (7-0) won the state singles title last year to go along with a doubles title in 2022 with his brother Grant Cohen. Senior Junchen Jia (10-1) won a doubles title in 2023. Cohen is a William & Mary commit Jia is a Vassar commit.

Ironwood Ridge has four state titles (2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013) under former head coach Ryan Bais.

(Kamden Kusaj/Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

CATALINA FOOTHILLS 9, IRONWOOD RIDGE 0

 

SINGLES RESULTS

Austin Cohen over Kamden Kusaj (6-0, 6-0)

Junchen Jia over Enzo Alvarez (6-0, 6-0)

Santiago Astengo over Tyler Wenger (6-0, 6-0)

Ahmed Bozdogan over Felipe Echeverri (6-1, 6-4)

Parker Servoss over Teagan Ethington (6-0, 6-0)

Aaron Zeldin over Elijah Joyce (6-2, 6-2)

(Junchen Ji/Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

DOUBLES RESULTS

Servoss/Astengo over Alvarez/Kusaj (9-7)

Zeldin/Bozdogan over Wenger/Echeverri (8-3)

Kai Sadalla/Finn Griffis over Kenneth Cervantez/Diego Briones-Herrera (8-1)