Spring sports are officially underway and it was a busy weekend for Durango High School athletics.
On Thursday, the Durango girls golf team traveled down to Albuquerque for the Crystal Woods Memorial at Los Altos Golf Course. The Demons finished second out of 10 teams.
“For us to get second place as a team is great because the two differences between the way that Colorado does our tournaments and the way New Mexico does theirs is in Colorado, we take our top three players out of five,” Durango head coach Kirk Rawles said. “New Mexico takes their top four players out of five. So for us to get second, it shows that we have enough depth to be able to hang with the New Mexico schools.”
The Demons shot a 373 as a team only behind St. Pius’ 351. Junior Ellie White led the Demons with a sixth-place finish after she shot 88 on the Par 72 course. Sophomore Jayden Craig was right behind her in seventh with a 90. Freshman Dylan Livingston finished 10th with a 96 and junior Myla Glaser finished 14th with a 99.
Rawles said what makes the Los Altos course tough is there’s an interior executive course that is out of bounds, which makes Los Altos play pretty tight.
But despite the tight conditions, Rawles was impressed with how sophomore Riley Harms played. She shot a 111 in her second 18-hole round of competitive golf.
The Demons are back in action on Monday in Farmington at Piñon Hills Golf Club.
Girls lacrosse dominates:
On Friday, the Durango girls lacrosse team hit the road and took care of business 18-7 at Eagle Valley.
The Demons improved to 2-1 overall with the win while Eagle Valley fell to 0-7 with the loss.
“We started off the first quarter pretty lackluster, it ended tied 4-4,” Durango head coach Eric Elliot said. “I don't know if it was a product of the long bus ride but we definitely took the cobwebs out and got our legs going right at the start of the second quarter. So that was pretty nice.”
Elliot said it was raining on and off during the game. He also said his team scored enough to put on the running clock at the end of the third quarter.
“We were able to empty our benches,” Elliot said. “We had quite a few kids not make the trip but the ones that made it they all got some real quality minutes.”
Senior Annabel Carithers had five goals and two assists. Junior Silvie Bosmans had three goals and an assists and junior Sofia Naffziger had three goals as well. Freshmen Indie Eaton and Teagan Frausto each had two goals as well.
Junior goaltender Fiona Chandler had 18 saves for the Demons.
Durango is back in action at home on Friday against Grand Junction at 4 p.m.
Boys lacrosse struggles offensively:
The Durango boys lacrosse team lost 9-1 at Fruita Monument on Friday to drop to 1-4 overall and 0-3 in the 4A Mountain League.
Henry Huff scored the only goal for the Demons and was assisted by JT Munger. Goalie Henry Howe had 22 saves in the game.
The Demons are back in action on Monday at Telluride.
Baseball loses back-and-forth affair:
The Durango baseball team is still learning how to win close games. Two of the Demons’ three losses have been by one run. One of those losses came on Saturday. Durango lost 5-4 at Delta to drop to 5-3 overall. Delta improved to 3-3 with the win.
“They played really well,” Durango head coach Austin Anderson said about his team. “They gave it their all and nobody ever quit all seven innings, we kept answering and we kept playing hard. We missed a couple of key opportunities in certain situations and those are on me not making sure that the players are ready and prepared for when that time comes in baseball.”
Anderson said his squad left too many runners on base at times and the Demons couldn’t get the key hits when the bases were loaded.
Sophomores Dylan Burns and Austin Romero each went 3-3 hitting. Romero had two RBIs and Burns scored a run.
“Austin and Dylan, they're seeing it big right now,” Anderson said. “So anytime you can see it like a beach ball that's really going to help us out. A lot of that just comes from confidence. It's really good for them to have high confidence in themselves and even other people in the lineup. Through the lineup, we're all making strides and we're all starting to get to where we want to be and be really competitive at every at-bat.”
Junior Cully Feeney had the lone home run for the Demons.
Sophomore Landon Padilla and junior Jack Englund split time on the mound and each pitched three innings. Padilla allowed two runs and four hits. He also had four strikeouts. Englund allowed five hits, three runs and had four strikeouts too.
Anderson was proud of both pitchers’ attitudes and leadership on the mound and also said there were too many walks given up.
The Demons got in a hole early and trailed 3-1 after the second inning. Anderson said his team has struggled to start games and the squad gets better as games go on.
He was proved to be right as Durango battled back to be down 5-4 after the sixth inning. But at the top of the seventh, the Demons couldn’t get that critical run and lost.
“We probably grew more today than we have over a whole week of practice because we got to be in that real situation with real runners on base and we were down,” Anderson said. “It was just the situation and with how young our team is, we need as much as that as we can.”
Durango is back on the road on Friday to face Pueblo Central.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
