A season’s worth of domination ended in 80 minutes last season. The Durango boys soccer team was stunned in its 2022 playoff opener, losing 1-0 to Coronado.
The Demons had steamrolled their opponents during their 15-0 regular season in 2022, outscoring the opposition 90-8.
However, the Demons could not find the back of the net against Coronado for a multitude of reasons.
“I think everyone kind of just dismissed that game,” senior captain Sam Persing said. “We all were pretty naive in thinking that we were just going to cruise right through, and everyone was thinking about the semifinals and the final.”
The 7-9-1 Cougars scored the decisive goal in the second half to oust the 15-1 Demons. Coronado then pushed most of their players back into the field’s defensive zone to preserve the victory.
“I think our team was so talented, and we were so dominant that we sort of accepted the fact that we would get 50 chances every game to score goals,” Durango coach Danny Suits said. “That's not how soccer works. We created so many chances for ourselves throughout the season, that we'd gotten to this mindset where, ‘oh, we missed that chance. Oh, well, we're going to get another one.’ This is not how the game works.”
Both Suits and Persing said they wished the team had faced more adversity earlier in the season. The Demons had five 10-0 victories in the regular season. They only had one regular-season match where they scored just two goals. Its lone one-score game in the regular season was a 3-2 win against Mead on Sept. 2, 2022.
“We were in a really tough spot where there's so much pressure on the program on the team going undefeated throughout the season,” Persing said. “I think everyone was just feeling the pressure. A lot of times, getting maybe a loss or two out of the way early in the season can kind of remind you that you're not all that.”
The Demons have faced more adversity this season. They’re 9-2-1 with losses to Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction, which changed the team’s approach.
“This game is as much psychological and emotional as it is physical and athletic,” Suits said. “Taking a fat loss early in the year, it's a humbling experience and it's a great shock to the system that, ‘OK, this is different.’ We got to put our heads down. We’ve got to grind this year.”
The devastation of last year’s playoff loss taught the Demons everything they needed to know, according to Persing. He welcomes the knowledge of what it’s like to be trailing and how to come back.
Persing’s goal for this season is twofold: Win the state championship and feel content about where the program is at the end of the season.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
