Durango High School’s cross country teams continue to be at the top of any meet results sheet as a team and individually. The Demons boys and girls cross country teams won the Pantherfest 2025 in Delta on Friday.
The Durango girls team won out of 15 schools with a team score (top five runners from each team’s finishing position added up) of 37, beating Battle Mountain in second with 85 and Grand Junction in third with 94. The Durango boys won out of 18 schools with a team score of 45, with Grand Junction Central in second with 64 and Eagle Valley in third with 91.
“They’re pretty excited about the whole thing,” Durango cross country head coach Michael Fadil said about his team. “It was a new course. We've never been there and it was a pretty nice day … it was fun … we got to see a lot of the teams that we will be racing on Friday in the league meet.”
It was a familiar story on the girls side for Durango with junior Lacy Ruggiero and freshman Zia Fadil running together up front. Ruggiero finished second out of 185 runners in the girls 5-kilometer race in 18 minutes and 42.3 seconds. Zia was third in 18:48.3. Effie Fletcher from Coal Ridge won the girls race in 18:00.5.
Fadil thought the times would be faster at the Confluence Park course than they were. The course was changed from last year because it was previously too short. Surprisingly, runners has the course a few hundredths too long after looking at their watches after the race. There weren’t any hills and the race was mostly run on crushed gravel path.
Behind Ruggiero and Zia was freshman Rebekah Quayle in sixth in 19:44.9, senior Evie Morris in 11th in 20:04.5 and senior Ayumi Lambert in 17th in 20:25.6 to round out the scoring positions for Durango.
Fadil was happy to see Morris do well. It’s her first cross country season after spending last fall studying abroad in Spain, according to Fadil. She has a track and field background and Fadil is excited to see how she can continue to progress at the longer 5K distance.
On the boys side, sophomore Caden Voss led the Demons with a fourth-place finish out of 179 runners in 16:22.6. Voss has been working to bounce back from a fracture in his toe during the summer. He’s now 100%, according to Fadil. He brought Voss along slowly this season because he didn’t want Voss’ toe to be a reoccurring issue.
“We spent a lot of time talking about that over the last four or five weeks,” Fadil said about him and Voss. “My strong feeling was, Caden, if you can you can aqua jog, if you can do the elliptical, if you can bike, let's just get you really fit … he did all the hard work while he wasn't running and stayed very fit. So, taking someone fit and turning them into a runner, especially when they've been a runner for a long time, is a pretty manageable task.”
Behind Voss was senior Miles Snow in seventh in 16:31.9. Junior Rocco Enea was ninth in 16:51.1, junior Jack Purcell was 10th in 16:51.7 and freshman Travis Hugentobler was 14th in 17:17.5 to round out the scoring positions.
Durango heads up to Grand Junction on Friday for the Warrior Lincoln Park Classic, which also counts as a Southwest League meet.
After losing two games to Fruita Monument by a combined 30 runs on Saturday, it would be understandable if Durango High School’s softball team was a little rattled and not ready for its games against Delta. Durango was ready.
The Demons beat Delta at home on Monday, 12-1, and 11-9 to send their seniors off their home field one last time with a win. It was one of Durango’s better wins of the season, as 3A Delta entered the two games with a 14-6 record overall and a 11-1 3A Western Slope League record.
“It was really nice,” Durango softball head coach Sara Clair said. “Abby Gordon pitched a heck of a game that first game against them and held them to five hits. Our defense did really well, we had two errors in that game and we just hit the ball; everybody hit the ball, which was awesome.”
Durango moved to 11-10 overall and stayed at 0-8 in the 5A/4A Southwestern League contests after the non-league games against Delta.
In the first game, the first two innings were scoreless before Durango put four on the board in the third inning. Delta responded with a run in the fourth to make it 4-1 and keep the Panthers in the game. Then, something happened that Clair hasn’t seen in her 30 years of playing and coaching.
Junior Avery Clair stepped up to the plate for the Demons in the bottom of the fifth with Durango leading 4-1. She hit a home run. No big deal, right?
Well, everyone kept hitting for the Demons, allowing Avery to get up once again in the bottom of the fifth. She hit another home run to put Durango up 12-1 and end the game because of the run rule. Clair said she’s never seen a player hit two home runs in the same inning.
Avery led the Demons, going 3-4 at the plate with her two home runs. Sophomore Abigail Gordon finished with six strikeouts and only allowed five hits in Game 1 against Delta.
The second game against the Panthers was a comeback effort for Durango. The Demons were down 7-2 after three innings due to errors and Delta was hitting off Durango senior pitcher Jenna Glueck.
“At one point, I had to call timeout and walk out there in that third inning,” Clair said. “I said (to Glueck), ‘Listen, it's senior day. Do not make me pull you on senior day; I want you to finish out here.”’
Glueck responded. The next three innings were scoreless for Delta as Durango put nine runs on the board to take the lead. Delta scored two in the seventh inning to make it interesting, but Durango held on to make it an undefeated senior day for the team’s four seniors (Glueck, Sydney Hockaday, Bailee Franklin, Alexa Capitan).
Gordon led the team at the plate, finishing 3-4. Avery finished 1-2 at bat with another home run. Glueck allowed nine hits and nine runs, but finished the day with eight strikeouts and the victory.
The Demons are on the right side of the bubble for 4A regionals after the Delta wins. Durango is 25th in 4A in CHSAA’s Selection & Seeding Index. The top 32 teams make it to regionals. Durango can help improve its seed in regionals by getting its first league win against Grand Junction Central on the road on Saturday. The Demons can also secure their first winning season since 2021 with one win. The first game of the doubleheader starts at 10 a.m.
The Durango High School volleyball team ended its six-week stretch of playing away from home with a 3-0 win at Pagosa Springs on Tuesday.
Durango improved to 5-12 overall with the 25-18, 25-21 and 25-19 win. Pagosa Springs dropped to 2-13 overall with the loss.
No individual stats were available at press time. Durango has its first home game of the season on Friday against Fruita Monument at 6 p.m. After that, Durango’s last five games of the regular season will be at home.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
