Something unique happened for Durango girls soccer this past weekend. The Demons traveled to Montrose and Grand Junction Central and didn’t come away with a win or a loss. They tied both games.

Durango tied Montrose 0-0 on Friday and tied Grand Junction Central 1-1 on Saturday. The Demons moved to 3-2-3 overall and 1-1-2 in the 4A/5A Southwestern League. Montrose moved to 9-0-2 overall and 4-0-2 in the 4A/5A Southwestern League after the tie. Grand Junction Central moved to 3-3-2 overall and 0-3-2 in the 4A/5A SWL after the tie.

Demons head coach Melissa Halonen said she was happy with how the Durango defense played this weekend but the offense could use some improvement.

Against Montrose, sophomore goalie Ryne Neiman finished with six saves.

The first half of the Grand Junction Central game was scoreless and both teams found the back of the net in the second half. Senior forward Emery Miller finished a penalty kick for the Demons in the second half. Neiman had three saves.

Durango plays next at Crested Butte on April 25.

Demons girls lacrosse dominates at Montrose, loses big at Cherokee Trail

The Durango girls lacrosse team was involved in two lopsided games this past weekend.

Unfortunately, the Demons were on the losing end of one of them.

Durango took care of business against Montrose and won 13-3 on Friday on the road. Then the Demons had no answer for Cherokee Trail’s offense and lost at Cherokee Trail 20-6 on Saturday.

Durango moved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in the 4A Mountain West League after the two games

“We didn't play as well as we could,” Durango head coach Eric Elliot said about the Montrose game. “We kind of played down to their level a little bit. But we also had a pretty good lead pretty early. We emptied our bench more strategically this time because we had such a long trip right after the game that I didn’t want to wear out everybody. I knew Saturday's game was going to be a huge effort.”

Against Montrose, Durango was led by junior Sofia Naffziger’s five goals and an assist. Senior Emmylou Willis had two goals and senior Annabel Carithers also had two goals and an assist.

Junior goaltender Fiona Chandler had eight saves against Montrose.

“She's one of the taller kids on the team, if not the tallest and she's coming in close to six foot,” Elliot said about Naffziger. “This year she's really using that height as an advantage. She's not afraid to shoot … she didn't do that much last year, which is why she led the team in assists last year. She's turned into a little bit more of a scoring threat this year.”

Elliot said Naffziger has played out of X (behind the net) this year and is really good at doing an inside roll into a shot around the crease.

Against Cherokee Trail, the Demons got out to an early lead but Cherokee Trail responded for an easy 20-6 Cherokee Trail victory.

Elliot said it was a better performance from the Demons than they’ve had against Front Range teams in the past. He also said he got out-coached by the Cherokee Trail coaches. The Cougars quickly stopped the Demons from scoring and started scoring themselves. Elliot said he couldn’t find the right adjustment.

Naffziger and Carithers led Durango with two goals each. Willis had a goal and an assist and junior Jordan Meininger had a goal.

Chandler had 12 saves for Durango.

Cherokee Trail was led by senior Aubrey Benton’s nine goals and an assist and senior Kyla Bieker’s five goals and four assists.

The Cougars have three players who already have 30 goals on the season.

“You focus a lot of your energy trying to take away those big scorers,” Elliot said. “Typically at the high school level no matter what sport is, if you can shutdown the killer, you can have some pretty good success with that. But they had three killers and she (Benton) was just really good at reading our defense.”

Durango plays at Grand Junction on Thursday at 5 p.m.

Elliot said the team is trying to avenge Durango’s 11-7 loss to Grand Junction on April 5th. He said Grand Junction is the only team to have beaten Durango twice in a season since Elliot became head coach. A win against Grand Junction would help get the Demons in a better position to win the league which is one of the team’s goals, according to Elliot.

bkelly@durangoherald.com