Thirty-five runs were scored on more than 30 hits in Durango High School’s Southwestern League baseball opener Friday.
When the dust settled and the game ended more than three hours after it began, the DHS Demons were on the wrong side of an 18-17 score against the Fruita Monument Wildcats.
The loss dropped the Demons to 4-3 overall and 0-1 in the SWL. The Wildcats improved to 6-4 and 3-0 in the SWL.
“It was a tough game. The kids fought all the way through but couldn’t hang on to a few leads,” DHS head coach Rob Coddington said. “Credit to Fruita, they fought until the end and got us.”
The two teams combined for more than 10 fielding errors, but Coddington didn’t blame the loss on the defensive mistakes.
“We had a couple of errors late and some balls we probably should have caught, but I don’t think it was the errors,” he said. “Fruita got a lot of hits there toward the end that just fell in. Some seeing-eye singles and bloops. The ball seemed to fall for them. As coach, I could’ve made some different decisions at the end of the game, too.”
Jeremy Szura had two triples, a pair of runs batted in and two more runs scored in the game for DHS. Blake Dunlap had four hits.
The Demons scored 11 runs in the top of the fourth inning, and they led 15-11 through five innings.
DHS jumped out 4-0 early in the top of the first inning before Fruita Monument took a 7-4 lead going into the third inning.
Ben Wiley started the game on the mound for DHS. He lasted three innings before giving way to Casey Dunlap, who pitched two innings in relief. Blake Dunlap pitched the bottom of the sixth inning for DHS.
“Fruita was just tenacious. It wasn’t anything our pitchers did,” Coddington said. “They had some good two-strike hitting. We never really panicked. We kept coming after them, but we couldn’t hold on to a couple of big leads.”
DHS entered the league schedule confident after opening the year with some success in a few tournaments. Coddington said none of that confidence will be shaken because his team has been in a similar situation as recent as last year. DHS lost its SWL opener 7-6 to Fruita Monument and its next league game 14-10 to Montrose, but the Demons responded by finishing the rest of the league schedule 4-4.
“The guys have been in this spot before. They have a history of not backing down to anybody,” Coddington said.
DHS plays Montrose (6-0, 1-0 SWL) at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Montrose High School. Coddington expects his team to face the Indians’ ace pitcher Tyrus Lopez.
Montrose is ranked No. 1 in Class 4A by CHSAANow.com with nine of the 10 first-place votes.
The Indians beat the previous No. 1, Valor Christian, 2-1 on March 21.
They began their own SWL schedule with a 10-0 defeat of Montezuma-Cortez at home on Saturday.
“We know we have to come after Montrose because they are well coached and play hard. We will make adjustments to our lineup to be ready,” Coddington said. “Lopez is a very good pitcher, and it would be a surprise if we didn’t see him.”
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
