Durango High School’s quest to return to the final four for the first time since 2016 came up short, as No. 20 Glenwood Springs upset No. 4 Durango 1-0 on Tuesday night at DHS in the second round of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s Class 4A boys soccer tournament.
For the second consecutive game, Durango went down 1-0 early in the first half. This time, Durango was unable to come back as it did in a 4-2 win in the opening round against No. 28 Steamboat Springs.
Durango had scored 62 goals in 16 games going into Tuesday night.
“I would have never expected to get shut out,” DHS first-year head coach Aaron Champenoy said. “I think we’re too good of a team to not score goals. We had good chances, we hit the post, the keeper made a few good saves and maybe we had a little lack of composure in the first half at times, but it was a good team. They battled against us for the whole 80 minutes. It was just one of those nights; luck wasn’t on our side.”
The game’s lone goal came in the 14th minute off of a free kick when Glenwood Springs junior midfielder Leo Mireles lobbed in a high-arching pass into the box from about 40 yards out. Sophomore forward Justin Garces was able to get in front of his defender and get a head on the ball, and he sent it into the bottom left corner of the net past the outstretched arms of DHS freshman goalkeeper Levi Larson.
Durango (14-2-1) would respond with numerous chances but was unable to find the back of the net in the first half. The best chance came in the 30th minute when DHS senior forward Lance Townsend’s shot from beyond the 18-yard box hit off the crossbar and came down to junior midfielder Leland Heinicke, who was onside, but his shot from the 6-yard box went over the bar.
In the 36th minute, there was a controversial no-call when Heinicke was taken down inside the box after he was elbowed. The referee signaled for play to continue to the dismay of DHS fans.
Glenwood Springs (11-4-1) took a 1-0 lead into halftime despite being outshot 7-3.
Glenwood Springs’ head coach Wayne Smith knew that the Demons would keep up the pressure and told his back line to stay steady in the second half.
“Our guys just did a tremendous job of hanging on, and we played really, really solid,” Smith said. “They were one of the more mobile and more focused back lines ever since the early loss to Durango and Montrose. But props to Durango. They’ve got so much power with (Heinicke and Jack Beattie), and they had so much speed. We kept switching up to make sure that (Beattie) was marked, and we were aware that (Heinicke) scores a lot with his head, so we were just trying to make sure that we tried to take that away.”
Durango applied wave after wave of pressure, with much of it coming through Beattie, a senior midfielder. He almost put one in the back of the net in the 57th minute when he had two shots that were saved by Glenwood Springs junior goalkeeper Carlos Guardado. Beattie’s second shot was from less than five yards away, but Guardado dove to his right to keep the ball out of the net.
In the final 10 minutes, Durango’s offense desperately searched for a goal, and they had three free kicks that were all close. Durango’s last-gasp free kick was cleared away at the last moment after Guardado misjudged the ball’s path and Heinicke was wide-open, but it was headed away.
When the final whistle blew, many DHS players fell to their knees in disbelief, including Beattie.
“It was just really emotional because we feel like that was a team we should have beaten,” Beattie said. “We came out and did everything we needed to do except put the ball in the back of the net. But I mean, in the end, we don’t come out here just to get a win and results. We come out here because we’re a family as a team and we’ve put the hours in on the field and, sometimes, it doesn’t come out how you want it to. We got scored on in the first 10 minutes of the game or so and dominated the remainder of it. But sometimes that’s just how soccer goes; it’s a game of chance.”
Durango outshot Glenwood Springs 15-6, but the only one that mattered was the first-half goal.
Champenoy said he hopes the underclassmen will learn from Tuesday’s game but also thanked the seniors for leaving a legacy.
“It was a great season, going 14-2-1 and taking these guys to the round of 16, it continues the legacy of the program and builds a little bit of a new one, as well,” Champenoy said. “Couldn’t be happier with the group that I inherited, especially the seniors. ... I thanked them for everything they’ve done for the program and buying in to a new coach and giving me the respect and allowing me to make some changes, and I think we had a special year. Hopefully, the underclassmen see what it takes and hopefully we can have another run at it next year.”
Glenwood Springs will host No. 28 Kennedy in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
bploen@ durangoherald.com
