On Monday, the Durango High School girls basketball team prepared for something it’s sure to see plenty of tonight when making the short trek to Bayfield High School.

Full-court pressure defense.

“We cannot have weak, soft passes,” DHS interim head coach Nancy Smith said during the first drill of the day.

The Demons wanted to work out the kinks because they’re sure to see plenty of Bayfield’s frenetic pressure defense tonight when the regional foes meet at 7 p.m. The last time the two schools met in varsity play in girls basketball is a bit of a mystery, but the fact that the Wolverines plan to fly around the court is no surprise.

“With the style we play, the score can get up there ... but we can play good hard-nosed defense (within a higher-scoring format),” BHS head coach Ronnie Posey said.

Durango guards Jenny Welbourn and Madeigh Winsor are part of a fleet that’ll be charged with cracking Bayfield’s defensive code, and both said they’re looking forward to seeing just how the Demons will stack up against the No. 8 team in Class 3A according to coloradopreps.com.

“It’ll be cool to see how we compare to them,” said Winsor, daughter of Kim and Sean Winsor.

“You think it’d be a similar match, but it’s more of a rivalry,” said Welbourn, daughter of Melody and Jerry Welbourn.

Smith said her team “panicked” against a similar style of defense against Pagosa Springs in her first game on the bench, and she’s hoping the strides made in practice since that early January contest carry over tonight against Kayla Strobel, Candace Shaw, Breetta Moe and the rest of Bayfield’s defensive stalwarts.

“I think that the biggest thing is just not panicking for us, and then our guards, instead of picking the ball up, they just release pressure,” Smith said.

Posey, whose Wolverines are No. 9 in the 3A Denver Post poll, is interested to see how his team matches up against a bigger school in terms of enrollment and roster height. Bayfield’s two losses this season have come to Delta and Piedra Vista, schools with an enrollment closer to Durango’s than its own, and Posey said he wants to see how well his squad rebounds against a Demons side that has a bevy of players 5-10 or taller.

“They’ll test our rebounding, which is what we really need to work on,” Posey said. “We’ve got to get better (on the boards).”

Both Welbourn and Winsor played against current Wolverines throughout their middle-school careers as well as in a scrimmage earlier in the season. Welbourn said that she remembered Bayfield as being very physical, and Winsor backed her teammate’s opinion.

“They’re definitely aggressive,” Winsor said.

That physical approach has Posey a bit concerned about foul trouble early, but he’s still looking forward to having the neighbors over for a ballgame.

“I look forward to Durango coming over. I hope it’s a great game,” he said.

Herald sports writer Dale Strode contributed to this report.

rowens@durangoherald.com