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  Home Page » Sports » High School » Kadets Hand DHS Ticket Home

Kadets hand DHS ticket home

Demons, beaten 3-0 in Colorado Springs, fall out of state championship contention

Herald Staff Report After getting on the bus not once, not twice, but three times to visit No. 13 Air Academy in Colorado Springs, the Durango High School soccer team was sent packing 3-0 in the first round of the 5A state championship bracket.

"There's only going to be one team that goes home happy this year," DHS head coach Scott Emrich said. "It won't be us." The No. 20 Demons originally were slated to visit the Kadets last Wednesday, but conditions delayed the match first to Friday, then (after the team had boarded for departure) Monday.

Still, the Demons tried to put it out of their minds and found themselves down just one at halftime.

"It's really hard to say if that had an effect or not," Emrich said of the travel schedule. "We hadn't played a game for almost two weeks, but we didn't use that as an excuse or anything.

"Our speed of play was just a little slow for whatever reason." In the final match for seniors Cal Lieb, Dylan Simonsen, Andrew Schackel, James Logan and Brennan Buiso, Durango nearly found itself up 1-0 just five minutes into the game when sophomore Tom Olson hit the crossbar on a strike from 25 yards out.

Nonetheless, the Demons - who came in 7-7-1 overall and 7-2-1 in the Southwestern League after an 0-7 start to the season - soon trailed after conceding a goal to Luke Byington off a 30th-minute corner kick.

Geno Bigelow, a national team player in his age group who led the Colorado Springs Metro League with 18 goals, assisted Jordan Zand on the game's second goal early in the second half after the DHS defense misplayed a throw-in.

Mark Dotseth, with 20 assists in the regular season, then set up Bigelow for a score of his own - a surprising performance considering his rumored foot fracture.

"He started, he was fine," Emrich said with a hint of skepticism. "Our boys played him pretty tough.

"The boys worked hard, it was a great individual effort from all the guys," he said. "We were just a little bit flat in the back." One day doesn't define a season, though, and Emrich said he doesn't consider 2009 a failure.

"I told the boys after the game, I was real proud of them for this season," Emrich said.

"Losing the first seven games, they could have given up, but they didn't, and that says a lot about their character. The last eight games, we didn't lose. They'll remember that next year and try to get off to a better start." heraldsports@durangoherald.com