On Thursday, the Ironwood Eagles faced the Willow Canyon Wildcats in a battle between two of the state's top teams. Ironwood came out on top against Willow Canyon by a score of 79-70. Winning may never get old, but Ironwood sure is getting used to it with their tenth in a row.
Noah Gifft continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 35 points. The contest was his 17th in a row with at least ten points. Jadden Jones was another key contributor, scoring 12 points along with five assists and five rebounds.
When it comes to explaining why Willow Canyon lost, one person who can't be blamed is Braylon Haman. Despite the final result, he went 6 for 8 from beyond the arc en route to 38 points and 1 assists. Haman scored a full 54.3% of Willow Canyon's points, the seventh time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Kaleel Kelly, who dropped a double-double on 20 points and 15 rebounds.
Ironwood's victory was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 15-2. As for Willow Canyon, their defeat ended a four-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 15-2.
Ironwood will take on Sunrise Mountain at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Hopefully Sunrise Mountain focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up nine last Saturday. As for Willow Canyon, they will head out on the road to face off against Centennial at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Centennial knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with flashy point totals in its past three matches -- so hopefully Willow Canyon likes a good challenge.
