Fruita Monument showed Durango’s offensive deficiencies Saturday afternoon. The short-handed Demons struggled once again to get into offensive sets with the Wildcats’ pressure and Fruita blew out Durango 47-16.
The Demons fell to 8-8 overall and 1-3 in the 6A/5A Southwestern League. Fruita improved to 14-2 overall and 3-0 in 6A/5A Southwestern League play.
“I tried to get the girls to focus on competing on every single play and to continue to play hard when we were down by quite a large margin,” Durango head coach Lauren Moran said. “Obviously that’s a hard thing for kids to do because they want to look at the scoreboard and have success on the scoreboard. My hope moving forward is since we are getting so many young and inexperienced players in the game, that’s going to help us in the future.”
Fruita showed its offensive prowess by going up 7-0 in the first three minutes. Sophomore forward Ryne Neiman broke the ice with a drive to the basket and a trip to the free-throw line the next possession to cut the lead to 9-3 with 2:30 left.
Fruita was able to break the Demons’ pressure easily for layups and the Wildcats led 13-3 after one quarter.
The Wildcats had more size and speed than Durango and the Demons offense suffered. They couldn’t get any open looks and had few offensive rebounds. The Wildcats pressure stymied the Demons and got out in transition off turnovers. Fruita guard Olivia Campbell hit a free-throw to push the Fruita lead to 19-3 with four minutes left.
Durango junior guard Mariah Maestas broke the ice with a midrange jumper to cut the Wildcats lead to 24-5 with 3:10 left. Fruita forced more turnovers to end the half and led 26-5 after two quarters.
The Demons got off to a better start offensively in the third. Maestas, Neiman and Alston all got in the paint and scored in the first four minutes to double Durango’s first-half scoring and cut the lead to 31-11.
Adde Neiman hit three free throws to cut the deficit to 33-14 after three quarters.
Bryn Bird started off scoring for the Wildcats and Sophie Emerson had an old-fashioned 3-point play to push the Fruita lead to 38-14 in just over a minute of play in the fourth quarter.
Maestas had a pretty euro step into a finger roll to put the Demons on the board in the fourth.
The Demons return to action next Friday at Palisade.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
