The final minute didn’t go Durango’s way Thursday in Farmington.
Despite 22 points from Anthony Flint and another 15 from Martin Cuntz, the Durango High School boys basketball team (0-2) fell 62-60 against Shiprock during the first day of Farmington High School’s annual Marv Sanders Invitational.
“We are learning as a group. We look old on paper, but we are still pretty young in terms of experience,” DHS head coach Alan Batiste said. “We are a brand new team trying to write our identity of what we want to be and who plays what roles. We are trying to figure that out early in this season.”
Shiprock’s Shannon Dale scored 13 of his game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter for the Chieftains (1-0).
“He was hot,” Batiste said of Dale. “He hit four 3s in the first half, but we pretty much shut him down in the second half. Luke Wesley, a freshman, he came in and did an excellent job defending him in the second half along with Jordan Woolverton.”
The game was tied 57-57 with 58 seconds to play. But Durango turned the ball over twice and went down 62-57 before Flint hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds of the game.
“We had two key turnovers,” Batiste said. “As a group, we gotta figure it out and keep competing and gotta finish games. We can’t turn the ball over two times in under a minute.”
DHS will get a chance to play Aztec and Farmington at 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, respectively. Batiste said getting four games the first week of the season after only six practices is a great way to learn on the fly.
“I’m not worried,” he said. “This team will figure it out.”
The Durango High School girls basketball team got the season started in dominant fashion Thursday in the first round of the Mountain Top Tournament hosted by Centauri in La Jara.
The Demons (1-0) rolled past Sargent (0-1) for a 45-23 victory.
“It was nice to see that effort in the first game,” DHS head coach Tim Fitzpatrick said. “Our defensive effort with Emma Fitzgerald, Maddy McManus, Jael Larson, Brenna Wolf and Kyle Rowland, those five got after it on the defensive end early.”
The Demons raced out to a 21-2 lead after one quarter. That allowed Fitzpatrick to play his entire bench in both halves, as all 12 girls played. Ten of the 12 girls scored.
Fitzgerald led the team with 13 points. McManus added seven.
Durango will face host Centauri at 5 p.m. Friday.
“They’re preseason No. 6 in 3A,” Fitzpatrick said of the Falcons. “They have a solid program, so that will be a good test tomorrow.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
