After winning second place in the New Mexico High School club hockey playoffs last season, the Durango High School club hockey team put up an impressive month of January.
The team went 6-1-2 to start 2016 and are sixth in their division with four games left to play in the regular season. Durango put a hurting on two visiting teams from El Paso, Texas, in a busy four-game weekend. In the first set of games, the defending state champion Franklin Cougars were the unfortunate opponents, and Durango prevailed in both contests, 5-4 and 6-3 behind heroic goaltending.
Durango goalie Robby Grogan made 38 saves while Eno Ulshafer and Landon Sill had three-point games in the first win. Later in the day, Collin Thorburn stood on his head to stop 41 shots in the 6-3 win.
In Sunday’s matchups, the Coronado T-Birds never took flight as Durango sent the visitors home on a sour note with an 8-2 beating in the first game and a 6-0 whitewash to close out the weekend. Thorburn shut the door with a shutout in game two. Sill had a hat-trick, as the Durango squad scored five power play goals.
This year’s Durango team is shorthanded in numbers and just plain short when it comes to size. They lost two players from last year’s squad to graduation and others that made the trip from Telluride last year aren’t able to this time around. Durango’s team has six underclassmen, three juniors and two seniors. While most teams go 16-22 deep, which allows them to constantly put fresh legs on the ice, the nine Durango players and two goalies are keeping up just fine.
Coaches Drew Kensinger and John Piccaro have the boys playing the best hockey of the season, and the group is poised to make another run when the playoffs start in March. The team will host its last home games of the season starting at 7 p.m. Saturday and finishing at 11:15 a.m. Sunday. Both games will be played at Chapman Hill Ice Rink.
Durango’s peewee hockey team split over the weekend to bring its record to 6-6-1.
The appropriately named Will Hadrick had two hat-tricks for Durango in Saturday’s wins against Glenwood Springs. Cole Matava also contributed a score as the team beat Glenwood Springs 5-4. Hunter Houle and Bode Ensign joined in the scoring in the second game in addition to Hadrick’s outburst in a 9-3 romp. Unfortunately, Aspen was too much for the Durango squad on Sunday as the league’s top team won 7-3 and 5-2 against the Durango peewees.
Durango’s bantams suffered a 8-1 loss in Telluride, but came back and improved in the second game which ended in a 6-3 loss.
The Durango Squirts and the U14 girls teams had the weekend off, however, some local girls had a successful weekend playing for the U10 New Mexico girls team. Fiona Chandler, Julia and Madeline Glotfelty and Molly Stanifer found themselves on the winning side in three of four games over the weekend.
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
