Tony Williams stepped to the penalty spot with Durango High School’s soccer game against Hinkley tied 3-3 late in the second half.
He said an “Our Father,” kept his cool and buried a game-winner to the right of the keeper.
That goal gave the Demons a 4-3 victory Saturday in head coach Dalon Parker’s boys varsity debut at DHS Stadium, the first and last time they’ll play there as opposed to their traditional home pitch at Riverview Sports Complex.
“I usually don’t get nervous, but I was nervous,” said Parker, the DHS varsity girls head coach just recently pressed into action this fall.
Williams’ penalty was the final call in a chippy, physical game played by both sides. The referees handed out three red cards – two to Durango and one to Hinkley – and four yellow cards.
Two Hinkley players left the game with injuries.
“Once they started to get back into the game, the tackles started flying,” said Williams, son of Claudia and David Williams. “It got kind of rough.
“It wasn’t really either team’s fault; it just kind of happened that way.”
Durango led 3-0 in the second half before Hinkley scored three goals in the span of 12 minutes to tie the game. Two of the goals came when both teams were playing with 10 men, and Ezequiel Lopez’s equalizer happened with nine players on the field for Hinkley.
“It was good to see the boys for their first game have some adversity and instead of bickering and separating, they came together,” Parker said.
DHS built its lead with two goals in the first eight minutes. David Schwantes scored with a curling rocket from 35 yards out, then Cameron Treeharne beat Hinkley’s goalie to the ball and tapped it to net.
Treeharne added a second goal in the second half before he was ejected for his second yellow card.
Hinkley, a Class 5A program, was the first team from the Front Range to come down to play Class 4A DHS in a regular-season game since 2009.
Thunderbirds’ coach Kevin Daly wanted to give his team a chance to both play a quality team on the road and get his kids out of the city and see another part of the state. He was impressed with what he saw from the Demons in their first game of the season.
“They were very organized,” Daly said of the Demons. “They were the more disciplined team, and it came out (Saturday).”
The Demons’ next game is 4 p.m. Sept. 7 at Basalt.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
