Defense set the tone for the Durango Demons in a hard-fought homecoming victory.
Durango High School had six sacks and came up with the game-clinching defensive stand Friday night against Liberty in a 28-23 homecoming victory in the Demons’ first-ever game in the new Class 4A Pikes Peak League.
“Our defense has been working really hard on getting off blocks and making plays, and it is showing up,” DHS head coach David Vogt said. “When the offense needs some help, the defense has got to step up, and it has to be the same way on both sides of the ball. We did that (Friday night).”
DHS (3-3, 1-0 PPL) led by as much as 22-3 in the third quarter after junior quarterback Terrence Trujillo hit junior running back Lawrence Mayberry on a 19-yard touchdown pass. After they led just 8-3 at halftime, the Demons put two quick scores together with a 24-yard wide-receiver sweep touchdown run by Justin Marcum on the opening drive of the second half, followed by the Trujillo to Mayberry touchdown, which was set up by a DHS fumble recovery by Alfonso Zavalla on a Liberty kickoff return.
Liberty (2-4, 0-1 PPL) rallied with a solid drive led by quarterback Hunter Wierenga, who connected on a 32-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Caldwell to make it 22-9 with 3 minutes, 54 seconds to play in the third quarter.
Wierenga’s next pass attempt also would be a touchdown, as he hit Josh Burns on a 24-yard score to cut the Demons’ lead to 22-16 with 2 minutes to go in the third quarter.
The next Durango drive set up a firestorm of penalties. A touchback set the Demons up on the 20-yard line, and Trujillo looked to hit an undefended Marcum with a quick pass to his left. Marcum jumped to catch the pass but was leveled by a Liberty player that was late to come onto the field. Marcum’s helmet popped off, and he remained down on the field. Liberty was flagged for an illegal substitution for the player that came off the sideline to lay the hit on Marcum, but a hit on a defenseless receiver never was called. That drew the angst of Marcum and Vogt, who both were penalized for 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct, and Marcum was ejected from the game. He also will have to miss next week’s road game at Palmer Ridge in Monument.
“It upset me, because the kid came off the sideline and wasn’t even in the game. He came off the sidelines and hit (Marcum),” Vogt said. “For our kid to get thrown out and the other kid not to get thrown out, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, and now he is out a week, too.
“But we tell our kids they have to keep their head in all situations.”
DHS wide receiver Lucas Baken helped the Demons get out of the shadow of their own endzone with 44 receiving yards on the drive, even though the Demons never crossed their own 44-yard line because of penalties. The change in field position was all DHS needed to punt the ball away and let its defense go to work.
“It was huge when we were down in that redzone; it was huge to get out of there,” Trujillo said of Baken’s big plays. “The field change, everything, it was great.”
The DHS defense forced another quick three-and-out to force a punt. Mayberry muffed the punt but scooped it up and returned it 36 yards to the Liberty 37.
DHS senior running back Jalon Malone then broke off two runs for 20 yards, Baken hauled in a 12-yard pass, and Mayberry punched a 5-yard run into the endzone to give the Demons a 28-16 lead with 4:53 to play.
“I definitely had to set up a score,” said Mayberry, who fumbled twice early in the game but finished with 106 total offensive yards to go with his two touchdowns. “All we needed to do was set up a score to get that win. Coach told me I was a leader and needed to act like it, so I did what I needed to do.”
But the Demons had a mental lapse on the ensuing kickoff. Kicker Casey Dunlap was supposed to squib it back to the Lancers, but he hit a high, short kick to up-man Emerson Collins, who returned it 80 yards for a touchdown that cut the DHS lead to 28-23.
“Those will cost you every time when you don’t execute,” Vogt said.
DHS got the ball back with 4:40 to play and ran the ball down to the Liberty 32-yard line, where they turned it over on downs and gave Liberty a final chance to score with 1:59 to play. But the Lancers never picked up a first down, and Durango took two knees to lock up the win.
“We were solid on defense. We didn’t give up too many big plays, and we stopped them on the line,” said DHS senior Matthew Lavengood, son of Steve and Tamra Lavengood. “Our defense is always good. We try to always hit hard, and the main goal is just to stop them.”
Stop them, they did. Lavengood had two big tackles for a loss, including a sack, in the first quarter, and Patrick Cunnion, Laitham Johnson, Dayne Rowley and Brandon Smith all had at least one sack in the game.
The Demons’ special teams also accounted for the game’s two points, a safety when a long snap went out of the endzone as Liberty faced fourth down from inside its own 1-yard line.
Trujillo finished the game 15-of-28 passing for 179 yards and one touchdown. He also ran six times for 42 yards. Wierenga was 11-of-17 for 118 yards and two touchdowns.
The Demons held the Lancers to a net of just 37 rushing yards after the six sacks were accounted for.
“It is awesome, but we have a lot of work to do,” said Trujillo, son of Geno and Nicole Trujillo. “We had a lot of mistakes we need to fix. We’ll fix it in practice this week for sure.”
DHS will travel to Palmer Ridge (3-2, 0-0 PPL) next week, as it will look to start 2-0 in its new league before they will return home to face No. 1 Pine Creek (6-0, 1-0 PPL).
“We are just going to get back to doing the basics again this week. Our game is about being more fundamentally sound than the other team,” Vogt said. “When we do that, we can be in every game, every week, with every team.”
jlivingston@ durangoherald.com
