This is one demon the Durango Demons can’t kill.
The Durango High School girls soccer team got a bad bounce, No. 21 Discovery Canyon popped in a second goal, and the 12th-seeded Demons lost 2-0 on Tuesday at Riverview Sports Complex to stay winless in the postseason in five consecutive years.
“That many years, if you don’t think its mental, you’ve got the wrong mentality,” first-year DHS head coach Dalon Parker said.
The last time Durango advanced past the first round of the state playoffs was a 2-1 win over Rampart on May 7, 2008. The Demons have reached the CHSAA Class 4A Girls Soccer State Championships the last seven years but haven’t been able to reach Round 2 since ’08.
Putting that tormenting streak to rest certainly was in the back of the minds of Berkeley Davis and her DHS teammates heading into Tuesday’s home game.
Three minutes into the second half it hit the forefront.
After playing to a scoreless first half, an unlucky bounce off freshman defender Katie Milliet caught DHS gaolkeeper Hannah Robertson off guard.
“Sometimes the ball bounces the wrong way,” Discovery Canyon head coach Maren McCrary said.
For the Demons, “sometimes” was Tuesday; it snuck past Robertson’s outstretched arms into the corner net in the 43rd minute.
Fear of the dubious streak took over.
“I was thinking about it for sure just because I’ve been thinking about it all season,” Davis said. “It’s the same thing over and over and over again. We just can’t finish here.”
Perhaps that mental focus on finishing the streak kept the Demons from finishing plays.
Discovery Canyon added an insurance goal in the 72nd minute after Robertson knocked down Jamie Keith’s high shot from the left box, but Sherry Langseth cleaned up the rebound for the final margin.
Parker called both goals “routine,” something lacking in the Demons’ game.
“We just couldn’t make the routine plays,” he said.
That went for both sides of the pitch.
The Demons had a bevy of quality scoring chances, especially in the first 40 minutes where they tallied seven first-half shots, most of them on flip-the-field counterattacks.
Although the Thunder were able to control the ball for much of play, the speedy DHS attackers put together some sporadic runs that challenged Discovery Canyon keeper Taylor Barbato – just not enough.
Barbato prowled the top of the box to cut off the DHS attack angle. As a result of her positioning, none of her seven saves looked too difficult.
“They play a lot of through balls, so I don’t want to be caught off,” Barbato said. “If I’m not making those runs, the defense is, and they’re getting tired.”
Instead, it was the Demons getting tired, chasing after through balls that they never quite caught with the right look.
“We couldn’t get in our groove,” Parker said. “That’s really the piece of the puzzle: We couldn’t get in a groove.
“(Tuesday) was just off,” he said. “We could not do it. We couldn’t find those pieces. And when we did find them, we couldn’t find that last piece.”
Discovery Canyon advanced to play Air Academy on Friday.
The Demons (10-5-1), meanwhile, will keep searching for that last puzzle piece to finally put their pesky postseason demons to rest.
“It’s just a disappointment,” Davis said. “I guess because it’s been so many years that we haven’t been able to finish. I wanted to change it this year.”
jsojourner@durangoherald.com
