After losing to Grand Junction Central 9-4 on Friday, Durango High School’s baseball players flushed the game out of their minds before Game 2 on Saturday.
“We’ve been working on letting bad things go and moving on,” said DHS head coach Rob Coddington. “The guys did a good job of that today.”
The result was a 16-2 win after five innings in Saturday’s rematch, helping DHS split its 4A/5A Southwestern League opening series with Central.
“I think we brought the energy more today,” said Tanner Coddington. “Yesterday we got down on ourselves.”
Tanner had a big game for DHS on Saturday, hitting a pair of home runs and a double, driving in five runs and scoring three more.
Tanner’s first home run, a two-run shot, put DHS up 6-0 in the first inning. In the fifth, he hit a three-run homer.
“I was just trying to hit a double somewhere to bring the guys in and it went out,” Tanner said. “It was awesome. I haven’t hit one out in a real game before. It felt good to get my first and second ones today.”
Leadoff hitter Michael Benner set the tone for DHS right away with a double. Gavin Hamlin then walked and AJ Folk singled to load the bases. A sacrifice fly off the bat of Liam Southerland got Durango on the scoreboard. Brady Hansen followed with an RBI single and then Ian Szura hit a 2-RBI single before Tanner homered.
“That (inning) set the tone for the entire game,” Tanner said. “We played with confidence after that.”
The Demons added one more run in the second, three in third, three in the fourth and then three more in the fifth to eventually enact the run-rule.
“I was impressed with our hitters, 1-9,” Rob said. “This was the first game we scored a bunch and continued to score. We had been streaky, but today we had a great approach, offensively and defensively, and we just kept coming after them.”
Central scored one run in the first and one in the second, but pitcher Jack Englund didn’t allow any more. Englund gave up just two base hits in four innings of work to get the win for DHS.
“Jack just kept pounding the strike zone,” Rob said.
Tagert Bardin then took the mound in the fifth and retired the Warriors in order to seal the victory up.
In Friday’s game, Central took a 4-0 lead in the second inning. DHS responded with two in the third, but Central pulled away with four more runs in the fourth. Bardin, Southerland, Folk and Hamlin scored for DHS in the first game.
Tanner took the loss for DHS. “I felt much better today; yesterday was not my day,” he said after Saturday’s win.
DHS improved to 8-6 overall and 1-1 in the SWL with the win while Central slipped to 7-7, 1-1.
“It’s a big deal,” Rob said. “We need as many wins as we can get to stay in the RPI hunt. I’d really like these guys to experience the state playoffs.”
DHS is also looking to make some noise in the league, despite being picked the preseason to finish near the bottom.
“We’re trying to send a statement that we’re coming for the league title this year,” Tanner said. To do that, he said, “We need to continue moving on when stuff doesn’t go our way, focus on the next play and play with energy.”
Durango will continue league play at Grand Junction (8-5, 0-1) with games on Friday and Saturday.
“I’m just happy the guys came out and had fun playing baseball today on a nice day,” Rob said.
