At the end of the Durango High School volleyball team’s first set Friday at Grand Junction, Demons coach Colleen Vogt looked at her girls and thought they were in shock.

At one point, the Tigers went on a 16-0 run en route to what could have been a humiliating and demoralizing Demons 25-6 game one setback. While many teams might have packed it up after such a lopsided loss, the DHS volleyball team did the opposite. They didn’t just put up a fight, the Demons got back up, turned the tables on their opponents and won the battle in five sets, 6-25, 20-25, 25-19, 29-27, 15-13.

Brianna Brown had a team-leading 36 assists and four aces in the win for Durango. Lana Razma led with 18 kills and Ally Snow had 12 kills with 13 digs. Ivy Kirwan also had 15 digs to help the Demons’ cause.

“That first game was over in like 10 minutes and I looked at the girls like, ‘what was that?’ and what a response we got,” Vogt said. “We knew we could play better so we switched a couple things up and it got better in the second game even though we lost. They just kept pushing and pushing and we just came together as a unit.”

When the Demons settled in, they took the final three sets, two of which came by two points. Winning close games on the road and notching comeback wins down 0-2 are signs of a tough and improving squad.

“Our girls just kept plugging away and exploiting the other team’s weaknesses,” Vogt said. “They found that next gear we’ve been asking them to get in and it was awesome to see us get to that next level.”

Durango will try to keep the momentum going at noon Saturday against GJ Central.

jfries@durangoherald.com