Emma Fitzgerald drove toward the basket. She had the option to shoot or pass the ball. The Durango High School guard got the ball to Mason Rowland, and the freshman forward delivered.
Rowland connected on a jump shot from six feet away from the basket as time expired, and the forward sent the Demons to a 35-33 win in the championship game of Aztec High School’s Rumble in the Jungle girls basketball tournament. Making the win that much sweeter was that it came against Class 5A/4A Southwestern League rival Montrose.
“It’s huge,” DHS head coach Tim Fitzpatrick said. “These kids have worked so hard. It was a complete team effort with the defense they had to apply to get back in the game. I’m super proud of them and can’t say enough about all of their effort.”
Durango (7-6) erased a 31-23 deficit during the final four minutes of the game. DHS would tie it at 33-33 on a Jael Larson floater with 38.7 seconds to play. After Durango got a defensive stop, the Demons set up the final play with eight seconds to go.
“Emma kind of drove, and we had a play set up where she had the choice to shoot or pass,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know what she really did, but she found Mason, and Mason put it up. It kind of hung there, but it went in. I would like to say I drew it up perfectly, but the kids executed even though maybe I screwed it up.”
Montrose (10-2) raced out to a 6-0 lead in the game. But Maddy McManus willed Durango back with six points of her own in the final 2:31 of the quarter to send it to the second quarter tied.
“I was just thinking, ‘We need to start off strong,’” McManus said. “They’re in our league, so we were trying to show them what we’ve got early on. I was surprised, too, that once I got some points up, we were able to get in a flow, and our whole team just came together. And I think that shocked them a little bit; they seemed frazzled at first.”
The Demons were outscored 13-8 in the second quarter and trailed 19-14 at the break. The deficit would be 27-21 going to the fourth quarter.
Fitzgerald led Durango with 12 points, while McManus had eight and Larson scored five. Josie Eccher scored eight to lead Montrose.
“I just knew that we weren’t going to give up,” Fitzgerald said. “From the very beginning, I knew that we were going to push to the end; we weren’t going to back down to any challenge. And this was a challenge. We knew that Montrose was going to bring it to us, and the only thing we had in our minds was bringing it right back to them. And that’s what we did; we switched the game completely, and we fought all the way to the finish.”
DHS returned to New Mexico Tuesday, traveling a bit further down U.S. Highway 550 to take on Bloomfield, who beat the Demons. Next Tuesday, Durango will travel to face Telluride.
“Coming out of the break and not really getting any practice and to get three games and three wins in and one against a highly-ranked Colorado opponent as far as RPI is concerned, it’s big for our program,” Fitzpatrick said. “Now, we got a couple more games to get ready for our league.”
The Demons won’t be home until Jan. 17 against none other than Montrose to open league play.
“I cannot wait,” Fitzgerald said. “The next time that we play them, they’re going to really want it, but I think it just boils down to who wants it more. That’s going to be us.”
Sports writer Joel Priest contributed to this report.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
