His heart was with his 'mates.
His left arm, however, had rendered him a no-go.
Last seen in Wolverine Country Stadium's bleachers sporting a purple/gold/black cast while absent from Bayfield's previous home match, sophomore Colton Fine nearly hyped up the Wolverines' first of two Homecoming Week matches right when the homies (and townies) needed it most.
Down 3-nil after Durango JV attacker Nick Dudley converted a 44th-minute feed from freshman standout Logan Fullington, Fine took BHS' best chance on a near-breakaway in the 57th, but DHS soph Bryce Dietrich was up to the task and preserved what ended up being a 4-0 clean sheet.
He was fortunate he didn't have to come up with many more sterling stops.
"They were really doing well at stepping to us," conceded BHS junior Finlay Marshall. "But what was happening was we'd get a little excited, get to that final third and get a little bit of tunnel vision.couldn't play the passes that we were doing in the midfield. But we'll work on that in the coming days and play Alamosa."
Which, considering both Bayfield's marked improvement against the 4A Demons-DHS had dominated in a 10-0 rout starting the season back on Sept. 1-as well as an eye-opening 3-0 loss at 3A Southwestern League menace Crested Butte just three days before Durango's visit, could prove quite a combative clash.
Kickoff against the Moose (3-3, 2-2 SWL prior to today's match at Pagosa Springs) is at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
"It was really weird," explained Marshall of the squad's recent showings, particularly up at Crested Butte. "We had that long bus ride-five hours, I'm not sure.it was really long-and we got up there and in the game.just had fun. We just turned it around, stopped having this negative energy, and we just decided, 'We drove all this way-why are we going to have a bad attitude about it?'"
"The chemistry is definitely building. Had some team issues, had chemistry issues, but now it's building."
An ill-timed Jaden Vitagliano foul deep in BHS' end, committed trying to stop Fullington from shooting, gave the Durango JV a penalty kick in the 14th minute, which sophomore Kieran Brook converted for a 1-0 lead. Amidst rainy conditions though, the Wolverines (0-7, 0-4) settled and allowed the guests little else until freshman Ian Mattox volleyed in a corner kick in the 37th for a two-goal advantage at intermission.
Dudley departed not long after scoring thanks to a nasty ankle sprain requiring crutches, but freshman Will Lammons eased some of his teammate's mental pain with a 66th-minute finish over Chad Winkler's back shoulder.
But before full time was whistled, Bayfield's sophomore goalkeeper (11 saves unofficially; DHS outshot BHS 17-5, with a 12-4 on-frame edge) had more opportunities to show his development with the anticipated debut of junior Austin Bushnell looming in the near future.
"Chad has done an excellent job," Marshall stated. "For how much experience he's done and what the coaching staff has done with him, he's doing an amazing job. I was very impressed with some of his saves today. But now we have 'Bush' back, and we'll see if the coaches play him!"
"Our defense is getting really rock-solid.going to be excited to see how they perform with Alamosa."
