The Durango High School girls lacrosse team was involved in two blowouts with a running clock in the last two days. The last one was with the Demons on the losing side and ended their season.
No. 9-seeded Durango lost at No. 8 Aspen, 17-4, on Thursday night in the second round of the 4A state playoffs to end a historic season for the Demons.
The Demons scored against St. Mary’s Academy at will in their 20-4 win on Tuesday night in the first round of the 4A state playoffs and Aspen did the same thing to Durango. The Skiers dominated the draw, easily moved the ball and made the Durango defenders look a step slow as Aspen got to the goal and easily scored.
When Durango did get the ball, it couldn’t capitalize in transition and struggled to finish its shots against the stout Aspen defense and its strong goalie.
“Similar to our St. Mary's game, except for the opposite, they dominated us on the draw,” Durango girls lacrosse head coach Eric Elliot said. “They have a couple of midfielders that have some really impressive shots. We didn't have an answer.”
Durango finished its season 11-4 overall, while Aspen improved to 11-5 overall and moves on to the quarterfinals. The Demons’ 11 wins are the most in program history, according to MaxPreps.
Junior Taylor Babcock had two goals for the Demons. Senior Silvie Bosmans and senior Willa Anderson each added goals for Durango.
The Skiers struck first with a quick win on the draw, the sprint toward goal past all the Durango defenders and scored in 13 seconds.
Durango won the next draw and didn’t have the immediate success that Aspen did. But Bosmans had a free shot from the right side and finished for the 1-1 tie with 10:54 left in the first quarter.
Aspen controlled the draw for the next few minutes and this led to the Skiers increasing their advantage with possession after possession. Aspen attacked from behind the goal for its second goal, with a pass coming from there to an Aspen player in front of the crease for an easy finish.
The Skiers then showed some patience and passing with their third goal. Aspen had an open goal on its free shot for its fourth goal after Durango senior Fiona Chandler was called for a foul. Then the Skiers moved the ball well again for a close-range shot and score for a 5-1 lead. Elliot called time with 7:09 left in the first quarter. Chandler had struggled up to this point with zero saves.
Durango finally got the ball for a few possessions but couldn’t get it past the Aspen goalie in the first few attempts.
Aspen made Durango play for those failed attempts with another goal. The Aspen player made a nice move around two Durango defenders for the score from the right side for a 6-1 lead with 1:20 left in the quarter. Aspen added to its margin with a goal off good passing only 15 seconds later for a 7-1 lead. The Skiers took that lead into the second quarter.
“They'd send multiple cutters and we'd have one covered; before we could pass that cutter off to another defender, there was another one going,” Elliot said. “So it kind of left our defenders on an island and they had some pretty precise passes. I think they only dropped four or five balls the whole darn game.”
Chandler made a nice stop early in the second quarter that looked like it led to Durango’s second goal. The ball eventually got to Bosmans, who passed to Babcock for a dunk on the crease. But the refs called the goal off because the Demons were outside.
Babcock put the second goal back on the board a few minutes later. Durango had closed some holes on defense and Aspen wasn’t penetrating as easily as in the first quarter. The Demons got the ball back and senior Sofia Naffziger found Babcock in front of the goal for a dunk shot for a 7-2 lead with 7:15 left in the half.
Aspen responded with five goals in the next four minutes. Durango continued to struggle on draw control and looked a step slow at times against the skilled Skier attackers. Chandler wasn’t seeing the ball very well but wasn’t getting a lot of help from her defense as Aspen juked its way to close-range shots with only Chandler in between the Skiers and the goal.
The Skiers led 13-2 at halftime.
The second half went by fast with a running clock. Durango had more possession than in the first but still struggled to break down the Aspen defense and get shots on goal.
“We had really good possessions,” Elliot said about Durango’s offense. “I didn't see any real mistakes. They have a darn good goalie and she made a lot of big saves. I can't remember how many shots on goal, but we had a fair amount … If we could have snuck a few more by, it would have been maybe a little bit different.”
Aspen led 14-3 after three quarters.
Anderson scored the final goal of the Demons’ season with about a minute left in the game. Durango will lose its two top point scorers in Bosmans and Naffziger but will return its third, fourth and fifth leading point scorers in Babcock and sophomores Indie Eaton and Teagan Frausto. Another huge loss will be Chandler in goal.
“Having the first league championship, we’ll finally get our banner hanging in the gym this year,” Elliot said. “So that'll be nice. Maybe some of the students will realize there is a lacrosse team at the high school and we'll get some more kids coming out for the team.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
