Legendary Fort Lewis College men’s basketball coach Bob Hofman liked to say Durango is a town for participators, not spectators. In 2016, the participators took their game to the next level.
Durango’s own Howard Grotts stormed the Olympics on his mountain bike while Carmen Small was kept out. Five of cycling’s elite went to the Silverton finish line together at the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, and a Fort Lewis College basketball team captured the town’s attention during a record-breaking year.
Elite runners continued to emerge, and fans were treated to a rivalry football game that was worth an 80-year wait.
Yes, 2016 was a great year for sports in La Plata County. So, let’s take a look back at the 10 stories that dominated the headlines.
With only one spot in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, USA Cycling selected Durango’s Howard Grotts for the men’s mountain bike race. The 23-year-old Durango High School and Fort Lewis College alum finished 38th after two crashes, and it was later revealed he competed with a broken pinky finger injured during training on the Colorado Trail.
Grotts has been nearly unstoppable on a mountain bike in the United States the last two years, winning national championships and solidifying his place as the top American cross-country racer. But, even as an emerging star of the sport, Grotts stays true to his humble roots. He went on to donate his USA Olympic apparel and gear to a fundraiser for Special Olympics.
Whether he’s bike touring around the southwest or racing the best in the world in Europe, Grotts represents everything that’s great about the Durango community. He’s added the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic to his race schedule for 2017, giving fans a lot to cheer for this Memorial Day weekend.
The 45th Iron Horse Bicycle Classic featured one of the greatest finishes in race history, as Fort Lewis College’s Payson McElveen edged Benjamin Sonntag in a photo finish in Silverton.
The 47-mile race against the train from Durango to Silverton was a five-man race as soon as riders hit Molas Pass. Five-time IHBC champion Ned Overend, three-time Olympian Todd Wells and young Durango phenom and newly-graduated Durango High School student Christopher Blevins joined McElveen and Sonntag in the lead group.
The five went together to the finish line, and Blevins made contact with the rear wheel of McElveen in a Haily Mary sprint. Blevins went head first over his handlebars, while McElveen kept his bike upright to narrowly edge Sonntag, a 2008 FLC alum and husband of Durango star road cyclist Carmen Small, who had won the national championship in the time trial the day before on the couple’s anniversary.
Wells was able to swerve around Blevins to take fourth, while Overend claimed third at the age of 60. Blevins picked up his bike and crossed the finish on foot to take fifth, sporting a cut-up face after the horrific crash.
Shortly after, Olympian Mara Abbott of Boulder won her record sixth IHBC women’s race.
A record-breaking season for the Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team began with the 2015-16 season and is rolling strong halfway through the 2016-17 season.
FLC set program records with a 28-4 overall record and 19-3 mark in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference en route to winning the regular season and RMAC Tournament championships to reach the NCAA Division II Regional Tournament. The Skyhawks also achieved the highest national ranking in school history at No. 4.
Behind the play of star transfer guard Joshua Blaylock and a strong cast around him, Durango diners were abuzz with talk about the Skyhawks.
The court at Whalen Gymnasium was renamed to honor longtime head coach Bob Hofman, while first-year head coach Bob Pietrack established himself as a coach ready for the big time with his effective leadership style.
Going into the final two days of the 2016 calendar, the Skyhawks stand atop the RMAC standings and are ranked 17th in the nation to maintain a spot in the NABC national rankings for a program record 17 consecutive weeks.
FLC has won a program record 24 consecutive home games and is 11-1 overall and 6-0 in the RMAC this season. In conference, the Skyhawks have won 21 games in a row.
There are plenty of big games left to be played for the team leading the RMAC in attendance each of the past two seasons. The RMAC Tournament could very likely return to Durango this March.
After 80 years of waiting, it was only fitting that Bayfield and Durango played into overtime in the first meeting of the varsity football teams since 1936.
The two teams grinded to a 6-6 tie after regulation, and it seemed as though neither of the physical defenses would budge. It was Bayfield’s that cracked, however, as Durango quarterback Peyton Woolverton found Jake Bourdon on fourth-and-goal to break the drought on the first possession of overtime. The Demons stopped Bayfield’s attempt on offense with a Dawson Marcum interception that clinched a 14-6 homecoming win that gave the Demons bragging rights for the next year.
Durango High School track and field star David Moenning burst on the scene as a senior as fast as he finished the 2015-16 high school sports season.
Moenning already had one state championship under his belt with the ultra-talented DHS cross country team that was ranked seventh in the nation at one point in the fall. In the last hurrah of spring sports and his high school career, Moenning made history.
His incredible 1-minute, 51-second final leg of the 4x800 meter relay at this year’s Colorado High School Activities Association Class 4A Track and Field Championships left the field in the dust as the Demons celebrated at the finish line. Their time of 7:53.60 was 11th best in state history.
The very next day, Moenning became the first student-athlete in Durango High School history to win two state titles at one meet after a blazing 1:52.26 in the 800-meter run. The time is third fastest in CHSAA Class 4A history and seventh fastest ever in Colorado.
Two-time defending Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run champion Kilian Jornet of Spain had company at the finish line before the sun rose Saturday morning in Silverton. Running side by side and holding hands to the finisher’s rock, Jornet and Durango’s Jason Schlarb kissed the rock together to finish as co-champions.
They crossed the finish line in 22 hours, 58 minutes, 28 seconds.
It was the second time in 2016 Schlarb completed the Hardrock 100 course, as he and a team of ski mountaineers completed the first known ski trip of the loop last winter.
Later in the day, Anna Frost won her second consecutive Hardrock 100 women’s title with another remarkable performance to once again prove she’s one of the top athletes in the world.
Durangoan Carmen Small worked for four years to be an Olympic road cyclist. She altered her race schedule to include more big events in Europe and had one of her best seasons as a professional leading up to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But the 36-year-old was left off the four-woman Olympic roster by USA Cycling despite a dominant performance in the time trial national championship.
Small appealed the decision through a costly arbitration, but it was unsuccessful.
Two-time time trial gold medalist Kristin Armstrong, a 42-year-old from Idaho, was given the spot ahead of Small. She rewarded USA Cycling with a third consecutive gold-medal performance in Rio.
After years of coming close, the Durango High School boys soccer team took the next step and reached the final four of the state tournament.
It was a magical season for the Demons (17-2), who surrendered only five goals against going into the semifinals. Durango claimed another Class 4A/5A Southwestern League championship and defeated Pueblo South, Skyview and Valor Christian in the postseason.
The season ended with a 5-0 loss to eventual state champion The Classical Academy of Colorado Springs. Nobody could stop The Classical Academy, as the private school finished 18-2 and won the state title game 7-1 against Battle Mountain.
It was Durango’s best season since the 2007 team reached the state title game and finished runner-up.
While one former Bayfield star was already making her name known on volleyball floors across the Mountain West Conference, another soon-to-be-Ram was finishing one of the best careers in Bayfield High School volleyball history. Hillyer, daughter of Laura and Rich Hillyer, led the conference in blocks per set at 1.58. Hillyer’s numbers weren’t only outstanding in the Mountain West Conference, but nationally as well. She was the top freshman in blocks per set and fifth overall in the country.
Meanwhile, Maddi Foutz helped lead the Wolverines back to the state tournament in Denver after another Intermountain League championship. The defensive specialist and outside hitter was a force with multiple double-doubles, and she followed through on a three-year commitment with CSU when she signed to become a Ram in November.
As BHS head coach Terene Foutz steps down as the leader of the Wolverines, she will still see flashes of purple and gold while watching her daughter and Hillyer share the floor in Fort Collins the next three years.
Kirstie Hillyer made an immediate impact as a redshirt freshman for Colorado State, winning the MWC Newcomer of the Year award.
Months after stunning the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference by becoming the first No. 8 seed to upset a No. 1 in the conference tournament and reach the championship game, the Fort Lewis College women’s basketball team shocked the country.
Head coach Jason Flores was able to sign the nation’s No. 26 recruit in Vivian Gray of Argyle, Texas. Gray spurned offers from major Big 12 programs to come to Durango and join sister Olivia Gray in Skyhawks baby blue.
Star senior guard Astrea Reed took a redshirt and will miss the entire 2016-17 season, but she is expected to be healthy and ready to play with Gray and the gang during a 2017-18 season that could be one to remember for the Skyhawks.
Gray wasn’t the only star recruit Flores landed, as he scored loads of New Mexico talent, too.
With some already looking ahead to next season, a young squad has already exceeded expectations this year with a 9-2 overall record and 4-2 mark in the RMAC. The future is very bright for FLC basketball, men and women.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
