The Durango High School girls basketball regular season ended the way too many games ended for the Demons in the pandemic-shortened season.
One night after Durango picked up a 45-39 win at Montrose, the Demons faced the Grand Junction Central Warriors. The teams matched each other point-for-point in every quarter except the second, in which the Warriors had a 6-5 scoring advantage. That one-point difference held up for a 33-32 win for Grand Junction Central (11-3, 6-2 5A/4A Southwestern League), which finished second in the league behind Fruita Monument (10-3, 7-1 SWL).
Mason Rowland led DHS with 14 points on Saturday. One night after she scored 12 against Montrose, Ana Cuntz added six points for DHS. Sydney Flores also had six points.
For Durango (6-8, 3-5 SWL), it was the team’s seventh loss by four points or less and sixth by one-basket or less.
“We’ve been in a ton of these situations. It’s about learning how to win these close games,” DHS head coach Tim Fitzpatrick said. “The girls are pretty down. It’s been a hard year with not a lot of practice time this season and not having consistent kids in practice for quarantine reasons. But the girls played extremely hard, and I am super proud of their effort.”
The Demons still might make the Class 4A 32-team playoff bracket, which won’t be released until Monday. The Demons finished 37th in the RPI rankings but entered the week 28th in the MaxPreps rankings. Those paired with the final CHSAANow coaches poll will determine playoff seeding.
“I think we’re in, I feel like we’re in, but I don’t know. I guess we will see,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think we are one of those top-32 teams. I definitely think we can win playoff games.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
