The Durango High School girls lacrosse team has aspirations of winning their 4A Mountain West League and hosting a home playoff game. The Demons got their season started the right way by beating league opponent Montrose 12-1 on Thursday on the road.
After the win, Durango starts its season 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the 4A Mountain West League. Montrose fell to 1-2 overall and 0-1 in the 4A Mountain West League.
“Once the nerves calmed down and all that stuff from the first game jitters, I couldn't have been happier,” Durango girls lacrosse head coach Eric Elliot said. “Silvie (Bosmans) did all the draws and if it wasn't her getting it, Taylor (Babcock) was getting it … We got a lot of shots on goal but their goalie is a top-notch goalie. Our attackers did a really good job of shifting right over to defense and covering all their folks in transition and forcing the goalie to make some pretty Hail Mary-style clears … But we were just super aggressive; we caused quite a few turnovers.”
Junior Taylor Babcock and senior Silvie Bosmans each scored four goals to lead the Demons. Senior Sofia Naffziger had three goals and sophomore Teagan Frausto had one goal and two assists for Durango.
Elliot said he wanted the team to win the opening draw and score in the first 20 seconds of the game. He thinks that may have put too much pressure on the girls to start; the Demons rushed their early offense and weren’t set in their offense.
Once the team settled down, Elliot was very happy with Durango’s ball movement. There was a lot of motion coming from the attackers off-ball, which was important to wear out Montrose’s man-to-man defense, Elliot said.
The Demons led 5-0 at half with a very strong defense performance. Durango caused 13 turnovers which is the most Elliot can remember in a game. With the Demons’ strong defense, senior goalkeeper Fiona Chandler only had to make eight saves. Three or four of those were on free position shots which Elliot said she excels at.
Durango has some time off before it heads to Montrose on March 25.
Demons boys lacrosse loses 8-6 at home against Telluride
The Durango boys lacrosse team is still looking for its first win of the season after an 8-6 loss at home against Telluride on Thursday.
Durango led 4-3 at halftime but penalties caught up with the Demons and Telluride took control of the lead in the second half.
The Demons fell to 0-2 overall and 0-1 in 4A Mountain League play with the loss. Telluride improved to 2-0 overall and 2-0 in the 4A Mountain League.
“We had some penalties in the third quarter that kind of got us,” Durango boys lacrosse head coach Val Skarbek said. “It’s not too bad, it took us to the third to have any penalties, which was amazing, and a big turnaround from our first game against Pueblo West, when we were pulling penalties right away. So they played really clean and then Telluride was able to just get a couple of shots on goal and score a few.”
Senior Owen Muraro had three goals, senior Sawyer Jones, senior JT Munger and junior Henry Huff each had a goal for the Demons.
Skarbek was very happy with senior Alex Gnehm performance in goal; he finished with 22 saves.
Durango trailed 3-1 after the first quarter but battled back for the 4-3 halftime lead. In the third, Telluride took the lead back before the quarter ended with the teams tied at 6.
The first-year head coach is happy with her team’s progress after losing to Telluride convincingly in both games last year. She said working on the fundamentals will help her team progress. The team’s improved conditioning level will also help the Demons.
Durango plays at Crested Butte on March 28.
Demons baseball loses opening game to Piedra Vista
The Durango baseball team lost Masen Hibbeler’s first game as head coach 7-3 to Piedra Vista on Thursday.
Piedra Vista improved to 5-2 overall with the home win while Durango fell to 0-1.
The Panthers finished with eight hits compared to three for Durango. The Demons had five errors compared to only three for Piedra Vista.
Junior Austin Romero, senior Dylan Burns and sophomore Grady Feeney each had hits for the Demons.
Romero pitched six innings for the Demons and allowed eight hits, six runs and had five strikeouts.
The Demons led 3-1 after two innings but the Panthers scored three runs in the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to pull away.
Durango will play Kirkland Central on Thursday.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
