Fresh off a 10-0 destruction of Class 3A Pagosa Springs in a rare non-league game this spring, the Durango High School girls soccer team avoided any kind of lapse Thursday.
DHS took care of Class 5A/4A Southwestern League foe Grand Junction with a 3-0 victory on home turf.
“It was a little nerve-wracking at first in those opening 10 minutes. That was stressful, but we got in a rhythm and did everything we had worked on in practice all weeks,” said DHS head coach Melissa Halonen. “We were getting combo play, moving the ball out wide, playing good crosses in and getting runs into the box. Then, we had been working on set pieces with throws and corner kicks, and we scored on two of those, too.”
DHS (5-0-1, 3-0-1 SWL) held a 1-0 lead at halftime. After hitting the post multiple times early in the match, it was Riley Campbell who came through with the game’s first goal. The sophomore was on the end of a long throw-in by sophomore Mason Rowland, and Campbell beat the keeper of the Tigers (2-3, 2-3 SWL) for the score.
“Mason can throw those in as far as we can kick a corner, so we’ve been working on trying to get set up to score on one of those,” Halonen said. “We set up just like a corner, and Riley was there to put it away.”
In the second half, senior Kyle Rowland would convert a goal on a Demons corner kick. Taken by Clara Krull, the ball found Ava Konikowski, who tapped it before Kyle Rowland finished.
The game’s final goal came on a perfectly played cross by senior Georgia Landeryou and was finished by Krull, another senior.
Jocelyn Feir made one great save at the buzzer to preserve her fifth shutout in six games.
DHS is now off for a week before it will play on consecutive days June 3 against Grand Junction Central and June 4 against Fruita Monument. Both are home contests. The Demons and Fruita Wildcats (4-0-1, 3-0-1 SWL) are tied atop the league standings.
The match with Fruita originally was scheduled for June 5, but a home track and field meet for DHS moved the game up a day to force the back-to-back matches.
“We are hoping we can play a lot of players on Thursday against Central and get some key players rested up for that game against Fruita,” Halonen said.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
