Pueblo Centennial’s girls soccer team has piled up goals all season, and the Demons couldn’t slow the Bulldogs’ attack in the first round of the Colorado High School Activities Association Class 4A Girls Soccer State Championships, as Durango fell 7-0 on Wednesday in Pueblo.
The Bulldogs (15-1) scored a pair of quick goals in the opening 15 minutes to take control and never slowed down.
“They’re just good,” DHS head coach Robert Logan said of Pueblo Centennial. “At the end of the day, they’re just fast, they have good ball control and they were exploiting our backside with how we started out. We gave up an easy goal, and they were good. It’s a bummer to lose, but I’m OK losing to a team that’s much better than we are.”
Durango (6-8-1) suffered a blow to its defense right away when Lydia Larson went down with an injury in the opening 10 minutes. With Larson out, DHS looked to freshman Maddy McManus to fill the void. Logan said McManus did a stellar job on the back line despite spending little time at the position during the season.
Pueblo Centennial added two more goals in the first half and took a 4-0 advantage into halftime.
The pressure the Bulldogs put on the back line of the Demons forced DHS to switch to a 4-4-2 formation, which the team had used earlier in the year, and limited the chances the Demons had to attack on offense.
Logan said the Demons had five or six chances to score in the second half, but none were easy looks at goal.
“I think the thing I’m most proud of is we were down 4-0 at half and we never gave up,” Logan said. “They played 80 minutes of hard soccer. Even though we lost 7-0, there wasn’t a minute where the girls weren’t playing hard on the field or stopped working or put their head down. They played 80 minutes of good soccer and I’m very proud of them for that.”
Logan also praised the Demons for adjusting to the physical style of play the Bulldogs presented.
The loss ends a season that had a few ups and downs for the Demons and Logan, who took over the program in the weeks before the season started after former head coach Dalon Parker accepted a college coaching job in Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon.
Logan said the season started a bit slower than he expected but praised the work of the Demons and the leadership of the seniors to get into the playoffs.
Now, he and the returning players will turn their attention to next season and building up another loaded schedule to prepare the team for a deeper playoff run.
“If I remember right, with RPI, we had the third or fourth hardest schedule in 4A,” Logan said. “And that’s the only way we’re going to get better. We can’t play teams we’re going to beat 5-0; we have to play teams that are going to challenge us so that when we run into teams like Pueblo Centennial we can be competitive. ... The drawback is we have to travel everywhere. It’s a six-hour trip to get to Pueblo and this is our short trip on the Front Range, and the teams on this end don’t have to do that.”
kschneider@durangoherald.com
