The Durango High School girls basketball team will look to improve after last year’s surprise trip to the Colorado High School Activities Association’s Class 4A state playoffs.
Last year, DHS won seven out of its final 10 games to earn the 35th seed to make the state tournament for the third consecutive season. Demons’ head coach Tim Fitzpatrick will look to build upon last year’s late-season push with only three seniors: Tayler Dossey, Emma Hackett and Danielle Lee.
“We didn’t start out the year as well as we wanted to, but, to the kids’ credit, they got it together and finished the season strong,” Fitzpatrick said. “So, it’s important to remember those experiences, and I’m going to look to the seniors for leadership, and we’ll see how it goes.”
While this year’s team may lack seniority, it doesn’t mean it lacks varsity-level experience. Of Durango’s five sophomores on the varsity roster, three played varsity a year ago.
Lee and Dossey returned as the team’s leading scorers, as they averaged 4.4 and 4.3 points per game, respectively. The team will look to replace the 11.6 points per game from Hilda Garcia, who graduated last spring.
Lee, who tore a anterior cruciate ligament in a knee late last season, said it will be a much more balanced approach.
“What’s awesome about this year’s team is that we won’t be relying on one key scorer. For the past four years, we have gotten our scoring from one or two players, so it’s going to be a balanced attack on offense,” Lee said. “This year, everyone has a strength, and we’ll be able to work off of them. We’ll be able to get it down low in the post or can pass it out to our wings for a 3-pointer. I think it’s going to be spread out across the team for points, but passing the ball a lot will be key.”
Last year, the Demons averaged 27.2 rebounds per game. Sophomore Maddy McManus returned after she averaged 5.5 rebounds per game last season, which was the second highest average on the team behind Brett Rowland, who also graduated. DHS returned three of its top-five rebounders from last season, including Dossey and Lee, who each averaged more than three per game.
“That’s going to be a big factor for us,” Fitzpatrick said. “We aren’t really that tall, and so we’re going to have to do the little things well – rebounding, not turning it over, those types of things and just really competing.”
Other key returners for Durango include Kyle Rowland, Breanna Wolf and Emma Fitzgerald, all of whom played significant roles down the latter stretch of the season. One fresh face will be freshman Sydney Flores, the lone freshman on this year’s squad.
Dossey thinks younger players getting experience will only help them this season.
“With this many underclassmen, it means that we can start teaching the new and younger kids what is expected at the varsity level,” Dossey said. “When the upperclassmen continue on to other things, it will be key for the younger players to step up, and that was the case last year, and we think it can only benefit us this year.”
The Demons will open the season with two tournaments, the Shiprock tournament and the Pueblo County tournament, as well as two home games before Christmas break, Dec. 11 against Farmington and Dec. 20 against Telluride. The team’s first game is 9 a.m. Thursday against Dulce in Shiprock.
“The early part of this season will be all about gaining experience,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’re lucky in that we get to see a lot of different styles of play, getting court time for a lot of these kids. With the league, there’s going to be a lot of parity, who could win it is really open for anybody. We’ll get to see a lot of teams at the beginning of the year, ranked teams in Colorado and New Mexico, and we’ll get tested early and often.
“I think if this team can develop some confidence, the potential is there to be pretty good. We’re going to play tough, give it everything they have. Defensively, we’ve got to get after it at that end of the floor and the girls know that. We’ve got some athletic kids, so we’ll see if we can make some things happen on the defensive end.”
bploen@ durangoherald.com
