The Durango High School girls lacrosse team opened up its 2016 season against the Aspen Skiers on Saturday with a new head coach for the third time in three seasons

Aspen (1-0) came out firing and built a quick 8-0 lead, putting Durango (0-1) against the wall. Durango didn’t get on the board until 7 minutes remaining in the first half when Shilo Gillen scored the first goal of the season for the Demons. Gillen wound up scoring all three goals for Durango in the 19-3 loss.

“They had a lot of good transition plays, and they would win draws,” said Gillen, daughter of Daniel and Sally Gillen. “They have speed, and we weren’t talking well enough on defense, so they beat us there.”

Durango is getting to know its third head coach in three years. Jeff Einfalt took over the lacrosse program from Katie DeButts and was handed the keys to the team right before tryouts.

So far, Einfalt is already winning his team over with his experience and coaching style.

“I think we’ve improved a lot since the beginning of the year with this new coach,” Gillen said. “He knows what he’s talking about and he has helped us out a lot. Every day we go through drills and drills. We practice groundballs, we catch and we work on transitions. Those little drills we do everyday helps a lot.”

Einfalt was born and raised in Boise, Idaho, where he was the head coach of the Boise State University women’s lacrosse club team for the past two seasons. Prior to coaching the Broncos, Einfalt was the head coach at Rocky Mountain High School in Meridian, Idaho, for three years.

The Idaho native moved to Durango five months ago after being transferred by his full-time job at CenturyLink where he has worked for 18 years.

Einfalt didn’t grow up playing lacrosse. He was a soccer player in high school and college. He went to Idaho State University in Pocatello and played mostly on club indoor soccer teams.

It wasn’t until his daughter, Alyssa, got into lacrosse that Einfalt changed his sport. His daughter didn’t want to play soccer and took a liking to lacrosse instead.

“She signed up and fell in love with game,” Einfalt said.

Through his daughter, Einfalt began coaching and realized he could be good. He went back east and was able to take classes on how to coach such a unique game.

When Einfalt moved to Durango, he wasn’t looking for a coaching job but rather a change of pace from living his entire life in Idaho. Einfalt intended on keeping up with the game and offered to help the Demons prior to this season. But when DeButts left, it was Einfalt’s team all of a sudden.

“I’ve got some good concepts, I’ve had a lot of training,” Einfalt said. “I love the game. I can’t get away from it. What I’ve seen girls accomplish through lacrosse and how they’ve turned out and progressed in their life is utterly amazing.”

Einfalt understands this year will be tough because of the constant changing of coaches, but he is more concerned with teaching the girls how to play the game properly.

“We’ve been working on a lot of high-end concepts, not just passing and catching,” he said. “Going into this I knew Aspen was going to be a strong team. We talked before the game about the fact that Aspen will be tough, and that we weren’t going to hang our hats on wins and losses but to work on the things we’ve been working on in practice so we can get better.”

So far, Einfalt is impressed with how quickly the girls are improving. He pointed out that Gillen and Shaelee Hawkins have emerged as the team’s leaders so far. Einfalt said that Gillen is a “driving machine.”

“(Shilo) really thrives at that, I’ll let her do her thing,” he said. “Shaelee has become a real asset, so that helps me out. She has emerged as a leader by helping keep the team organized. We have a lot of strong players who understand the game and want to help the younger players. I want all of these girls to be leaders.”

Beyond winning and losing and teaching the game, Einfalt stressed that he wants the girls to enjoy lacrosse.

Durango will be on the road for its next game when the Demons visit Summit at 4 p.m. Friday at Summit High School.

jmentzer@durangoherald.com