2022 Southern Arizona high school football schedules — Mica Mountain Thunderbolts

ACCESS ALLSPORTSTUCSON.COM’s SERIES LOOKING AT ALL THE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL SCHEDULES BY CLICKING HERE

4A

MICA MOUNTAIN THUNDERBOLTS

2021 RECORD: 3-3

• Mica Mountain coach Pat Nugent sets off on his 20th season as a head coach in 2022, leading the Thunderbolts in their first full varsity season. The school is in its third year of existence. Nugent has a career record of 141-60 with stints at Flowing Wells, CDO and Cienega before helping to lead Mica Mountain from its infancy.
• Nugent is ambitious with his scheduling in 2022 knowing that power points in the end determine a playoff berth.
• His non-region schedule includes Ironwood Ridge, Bradshaw Mountain, Poston Butte, Catalina Foothills and Salpointe. Those programs went a combined 41-19 last season and Poston Butte (4A) and Salpointe (5A) advanced to the state championship games at their classifications. Both programs were 11-3. Bradshaw Mountain advanced to the 4A playoffs after beating Mica Mountain 36-7 at home in the regular-season finale last year.
• Mica Mountain is in the 4A Kino that includes CDO, a school where Nugent once coached that has nearly everybody returning from last season’s 7-5 team that advanced to the 4A quarterfinals after an 0-3 start. That game at home Nov. 11 in the regular-season finale could very well determine the 4A Kino title. The Dorados are coached by Dustin Peace, who played for Nugent at Flowing Wells and was part of Nugent’s staff at CDO before becoming the head coach in 2009.
• The Thunderbolts’ other region games include home games against Empire (Oct. 14) and Douglas (Oct. 21) and road games against Pueblo (Oct. 28) and Vista Grande (Nov. 4).

FOLLOW @JAVIERJMORALES ON TWITTER!

ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator five years ago and is presently a special education teacher at Gallego Fine Arts Intermediate in the Sunnyside Unified School District.