Seeing his Demons begin the Mountain Top Classic’s fifth-place game Saturday with a 13-0 run, then close out a thorough victory against an overwhelmed Olathe by owning the fourth quarter, 18-1, Durango head boys basketball coach Alan Batiste was pleased to see his squad leave La Jara playing at a desired pace.
“We (coaches) basically told them our starts have to be better. I mean, we have to come out with intensity at the start of the game, not when we’re down,” Batiste said following DHS’ 53-19 win, coming on the heels of the Friday’s 64-35 rout of Rocky Ford. “We’ve been doing that the last two, three years where we’d have to turn up the pressure because we’re down 10 or five … almost into the fourth quarter.”
“We could be better; part of our struggles is that we come out very slow,” agreed junior Dylan Bettin, who was named all-tournament along with senior Jasper Zastrocky. “We usually get into it in the second quarter, build a lead, but sometimes lose it.”
“That’s what hurt us Thursday night (against 2A Cedaredge), but once we wanted to turn it up – and did – we got up 10,” Batiste continued. “But then … we’ve got to worry about protecting the ball and finishing the game.”
Such concerns were drastically minimized, if not eliminated, after Durango (3-1, 0-0 4A/5A Southwestern) went into the second quarter leading Olathe (1-2) 16-2. And with seniors Walter Stauffer and Lincoln Clay owning the paint along with sophomore Jacob Neubert, Zastrocky and junior Cole Ulrich, DHS relatively coasted into halftime up 27-7.
“One of our main goals is that we control the paint,” Batiste said. “That’s been our M.O. these last four games; we’ll win the paint battle, offensive and defensive rebounds. And even though we lost on Thursday we won that paint battle still.”
“I mean, they’re usually bigger than every other center or power forward that we play against,” Bettin said, “so just having someone to come relieve pressure (on the back-court players), score off offensive rebounds is really nice.”
Led by senior Xzavier Waterman (eight points) and All-MTC senior Garrett Walraven, the Pirates managed to match DHS’ slowed speed during the third quarter. Despite losing the third 8-6, Olathe still trailed 35-13 entering the weekend’s final frame.
“Start to finish … our goal was to come out and go on a run; I liked our performance today,” Bettin said. “Going deeper into the season, we’ve just got to work on maintaining our leads and … overall playing a little better.”
Stauffer’s 14 points led all players and Bettin, who sank two of DHS’ three 3-pointers, booked nine. Senior Landon Roberts and junior Zach Haber each scored six points, and junior A.J. Folk added five as 11 Demons logged at least one point.
“We had the overall team effort all weekend, from the guards all the way to the bigs,” Batiste said. “I enjoy when we have that because that’s what we have to do – all across the board – where we live at.”
From the free-throw line, however, Durango was just 10-of-21 – a figure needing improvement as the team competes this weekend up in Parker at 5A Ponderosa’s Mustang Invitational.
The Demons’ stay at the three-day event will begin at 8:30 p.m. Thursday with a test against 5A Denver South.
The bracket also includes Denver-based 4A Regis Groff, 4A Pueblo East, 4A Grand Junction, 4A Littleton and 5A Silver Creek of Longmont.
