The Durango boys basketball team bounced back from a tough first game at the Ponderosa Tournament in Parker to win its next two games and improve to 4-2 this season.
The Durango boys were blown out by Denver South 67-36 on Thursday, but responded nicely with a 60-39 win over Pueblo East on Friday and a 46-44 win over Littleton on Saturday.
“They're building competence, they're building camaraderie and they're turning into a family off the court,” Durango coach Alan Batiste said. “Our communication still needs some work, but it's getting better. But just from a year ago from that tournament to now it's just completely 180 from where we were at last year and a majority of these guys were on our team.”
Elsewhere, the Durango girls won two of their three games at the Pueblo County Tournament, improving to 4-3 this season. They beat Discover Canyon 47-32 on Thursday, lost to Lewis-Palmer 43-24 Friday and beat Cheyenne Mountain 34-6 on Saturday.
Against Denver South, junior guard JT Neubert led the Durango boys with 11 points, while freshman forward Donovan Whitehead had nine points.
Denver South had four players in double-figures in the win. Quinn Kelsey had 14 points, while Brody Shepard had 13 points.
The Demons started rough against Denver South and never recovered. Denver South led 24-6 after the first quarter. The second quarter was low-scoring and evenly matched, but a 15-7 third quarter for Denver South officially put the game away.
“They had some savvy guards,” Batiste said. “They pick you up full-court individually, not so much the trap but we just had a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. If your guards aren't handling it at the high school level, then you're going to be exposed, and we just didn't handle the ball very well. We were making some uncharacteristic mistakes. And those turnovers, we had 36 and I would say 25 of them were us.”
Durango handled the ball better in its second game against Pueblo East and won easily. The Demons forced turnovers with their length and rebounded well, according to Batiste.
Freshman forward Donovan Whitehead led the Demons with 15 points, and senior center Jacob Neubert had eight points.
In the Demons’ final game against Littleton, junior guard Noah Miles led Durango with 18 points, including four 3-pointers. Jacob Neubert had 10 points.
“He's been struggling shooting the ball,” Batiste said about Miles. “He's one of our better shooters so we just had to tell them to start getting a layup early and working his way out to that thing and that's what he did.”
Littleton took a 14-8 lead after one quarter, but the Demons outscored the Lions 19-8 in the second quarter to take a 27-22 halftime lead. Littleton responded by taking a five-point lead into the fourth quarter, but Durango came back and won in the fourth. Batiste said his team won despite shooting 8 of 20 from the free-throw line.
In the Durango girls’ game against Discovery Canyon, junior guard Tyler Trujillo scored 21 points on 8 of 15 shooting. Senior forward Carter Neiman had 12 points on 4 of 5 shooting as well. Durango took a commanding 24-6 lead at halftime and cruised to victory against the Thunder.
Trujillo once again led the Demons with 12 points on 4 of 15 shooting in Durango’s loss to Lewis-Palmer. The Demons struggled to score early, trailing 26-12 at halftime, and didn’t recover.
However, Durango locked up Cheyenne Mountain to win its third game of the tournament. Junior guard Mariah Maestas led the Demons with 12 points on 5 of 13 shooting.
The Durango boys will play in the Marv Sanders Invitational this upcoming Thursday in Farmington, while the Durango girls will host Piedra Vista on Dec. 19.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
