After 10 straight games with multiple goals scored, the Durango hockey team couldn’t find the quality shots it needed and lost 2-1 to Battle Mountain on senior night Thursday.
The Demons fell to 7-6 overall and 1-6 in the 4A Mountain League. Battle Mountain improved to 5-8 overall and 3-4 in the 4A Mountain League.
Forward Trevor Dunn and winger Trevyn Delong scored the Huskies’ two goals.
Sophomore defenseman Leyton Holbrook scored the lone goal for the Demons and was assisted by senior forward Lucas Betz.
“There’s was a lot of heart out there,” Durango coach Brian Ensign said. “The kids played well. That’s a good team like I told you before. Their record doesn’t indicate it, they got some players back and it’s a different team from the start of the season. I felt good about the effort we had, the opportunities we had, we needed more net-front presence, the goalie saw most of their shots.”
Durango held possession better in the first seven minutes with more opportunities than Battle Mountain.
The Demons had a chance with 3:30 left with the puck right in front of the net, but Durango couldn’t get a stick on it.
Senior forward Brady Holbrook was streaking toward the net with a minute left, but the pass to him was a little long and he couldn’t get a stick on it. The game was scoreless after the first period.
The senior night celebration occurred during the first intermission with all the players coming out with their parents.
In the second period, senior defenseman Zealand Eaton had a chance in front of the net with 15:15 left, but was unable to put it past the goalie. Durango was aggressive in the beginning of the second period.
Senior defender Zach Griswold lost the puck in Durango’s own zone but made a great check to curtail the Battle Mountain attack with 12:30 left.
Battle Mountain then had a few chances, but junior goaltender Evan Brock pushed them away to keep the game scoreless.
With 10:16 left, Dunn pushed a wrist shot past Brock from the right side to give Battle Mountain the 1-0 lead.
“It was a neutral ice face-off that deflected off our stick so it was tough for the goalie to see even though it was a long shot,” Ensign said. “It wasn’t anything defensive that we did. We didn’t win the face-off.”
The Demons got unlucky about a minute after the Battle Mountain goal when a Durango player appeared to get tripped while on the attack, but it wasn’t called by the referees.
Betz almost had a chance at a breakaway goal when he skated ferociously after the puck but couldn’t gather it and finish around the Battle Mountain goalie with five minutes left. Battle Mountain led 1-0 after two periods.
“Some of the zone entries we had weren’t how we practiced,” Ensign said. “We were forcing it and they had a lot traffic in the middle of the house area, which is in front of the net and above to the top of the circles. We were trying to find guys in that area and it wasn’t there. We needed to use our points more and use the perimeter more and recycle a little bit more. Sometimes that happens where it’s not going well for you so you start forcing things.”
Betz had a backhander in front of the net but pushed it wide with 15 minutes left early in the third period.
The referees called a tripping penalty and Delong scored a goal up a man with 14:25 left in the third period to put Battle Mountain up 2-0. He turned toward the net from the left and put one past the Demons goalie unassisted.
Durango stayed aggressive but didn’t get a ton of high-quality shots. A three-on-two counterattack was called off with an offsides call by the referees with 9:30 left.
A slashing call against Battle Mountain gave Durango a two-minute power play with four minutes left. It paid off as Leyton Holbrook scored a goal with some open space in the middle of the offense zone with 3:15 to go, assisted by Betz.
The Demons called timeout with 1:25 down 2-1 after a few more chances around the net following their goal. Ensign pulled the goalie with about 30 seconds left, but the Demons couldn’t bury another one and the buzzer sounded.
Ensign said his squad shot over the net over a dozen times, hindering opportunities for rebounds.
Both teams are back at it on Friday at 5 p.m. for a rematch inside Chapman Hill Ice Arena.
“It’s a big group of seniors and overall they’re just really good kids,” Ensign said about his 12 seniors. “There’s a lot of high character and they’re pleasant to be around. I always say our leadership and our older kids, that’s who you want your kids to be around off the ice. They’re good students, they’re good kids and they’re hard workers. Hockey aside, that’s why we do sports and that’s why we coach to make good young men and women.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
