The third game was the one that mattered most for the Durango girls basketball team. After two close losses against Montrose in the regular season, the Demons defeated the Red Hawks 32-23 at home in the 5A Sweet 16 on Wednesday night.
Durango’s defense was phenomenal all game. The Demons were active in passing lanes with plenty of deflections and Montrose could never get into a rhythm offensively.
In the fourth, Durango chewed the clock well with its ball movement. Unlike in the first two matchups, Durango kept its lead throughout the fourth with multiple steals and rebounds late.
“A huge difference is we played four pretty good quarters today,” Durango head coach Lauren Moran said. “When we played the first game against them, we played one really good quarter. Last game, we played two really good quarters. But today, we put it together and played solid quarters defensively. The girls did an awesome job following the game plan … to hold this team to 23 points is something really to be proud of. So that was awesome.”
Durango improved to 19-6 overall with the win. Junior guard Claire Goodwin led the Demons with 12 points on 4-10 shooting from the field, 2-5 from 3-point range and 2-4 from the free-throw line along with three steals. Senior guard Lilly Fitzpatrick finished with nine points on 4-9 shooting from the field, 0-1 from 3-point range and 3-5 from the free-throw line.
Montrose finished its season 20-5 overall. The Red Hawks were led by Mayce Oberg’s 10 points.
Scoring was hard to come by early on as neither team scored in the first three minutes. Montrose had trouble with turnovers while Durango couldn’t find open shots. Oberg received a great outlet pass and finished for a 4-0 lead with 3:30 left in the first.
Durango started struggling with turnovers with a few poor passes which led to Montrose increasing its lead. The Demons had some decent looks from 3-point range but couldn’t knock any down early. A Goodwin 3-pointer late cut Montrose’s lead to 6-5 after the first.
A Goodwin 3-pointer from a foot behind the arc gave Durango its first lead 8-6 with 7:01 left in the second quarter.
Durango senior forward Ellie White showed off her passing skills with a great dime to Lilly Fitzpatrick, who was open near the basket. Fitzpatrick finished plus the foul to go up 11-6 with 4:10 left in the half.
Moran said the coaches realized that pass from White to Fitzpatrick would be open and told the team to look for that during a timeout.
Fitzpatrick was all over the court, either defending well, forcing jump balls, turnovers and cutting off the ball for finishes inside. Standing at the free-throw line, White found Fitzpatrick cutting again. Durango led 16-8 with 2:04 as Montrose head coach Steve Skiff called timeout.
“Lilly had a tremendous game,” Moran said. “We had her matched up on Oberg, who’s their leading scorer, which isn't a matchup that we had before … Lilly did an awesome job of playing her the way that we felt she needed to be played. It was pretty effective. Then offensively, Lilly got a little down the first quarter when she missed a couple of layups. So it was really awesome to see her turn it around and connect on other shots throughout the game.”
Durango really chewed the clock to end the first half with a possession that lasted 1:40. White had the putback at the buzzer to go up 18-8 at half.
Montrose started the third quarter on a 5-0 run. The Red Hawks found some space in the paint. When they didn’t finish, they crashed the offensive glass for multiple second-chance looks.
Goodwin broke the scoring drought with a move to her left and a score to put Durango up 20-15 with 3:10 left.
Moran said the Demons got sped up a little bit to start the third and had to reset by realizing they still had the lead.
Durango was deliberate with its possessions again to end the third. The Demons were very active on defense at the end of the third, causing turnovers. Durango led 22-17 after three quarters.
Goodwin and senior guard Tyler Trujillo finished inside to start the fourth. Durango was ready to chew clock from the beginning of the fourth. The Demons had a few turnovers chewing clock and Skiff was ready to foul with three minutes left.
“Looking at the film from when we played them before, we had the leads and we couldn't hold them,” Moran said. “It's not that we necessarily just wanted to run the clock out. We just wanted to take our time on our possessions until we got the looks we wanted.”
White put Durango up 28-23 with a layup. After that, Montrose began fouling with about a minute left. Durango did a good job of holding onto the ball, not fouling and getting defensive rebounds to seal the game.
Durango will play No. 1 seed Air Academy in the Great 8 inside Denver Coliseum on Friday. The Kadets are 24-0 overall and are led by 6-foot-2-inch forward Tatyonna Brown, committed to Division I University of Kansas.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
