Tessa Leeder invigorated the Durango High School girls basketball team with a gargantuan 3-pointer, reminding the Demons of how good they can be.
The senior held her follow through after the net dropped down as her teammates mobbed her. The shot put the Demons up 30-24 over Fruita Monument at the end of the third quarter, and DHS held on for a 43-37 win Friday that snapped a four-game losing streak.
“It felt right,” Leeder, daughter of Margaret and Mark Leeder, said of the shot. “My team loves to celebrate. What a game.”
DHS (13-6, 2-5 Southwestern League) led 37-32 with 30.8 seconds left when Fruita (12-9, 2-4 SWL) started fouling. Katrina Chandler took all three fouls in the last 30 seconds and made all six free throws.
“I was confident in my teammates that if I did miss, they would back me up,” said Chandler, daughter of Klint and Rebecca Chandler.
She led the team with 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Fifteen of her points came from the free-throw line.
The Demons hadn’t won since they beat Montezuma-Cortez on Jan. 27. Friday gave them a lot of relief.
“We’ve been in a weird funk lately,” Leeder said. “I think we finally broke it.”
Chandler gave the Demons their first lead since the first minute with a pull-up jumper with 1:30 remaining in the first half that made the score 18-17, and DHS made a free throw before the buzzer to lead 19-17 at the half.
The Demons scored 12 of their 19 first-half points from the free-throw line, which helped them keep up with Fruita when their offense struggled early in the game.
“It got some of the kids in a little bit of a rhythm there,” DHS head coach Tim Fitzpatrick said.
Fruita Monument’s Riley Snyder grabbed control of the game early with a post move on the game’s first possession, and she hit two 3s in the game. She finished with 13 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks, but Durango’s defense eventually settled back into its early season form.
“We talked about challenging the kids in practice,” FItzpatrick said. “We got back to a bit of our old self.”
Just in time, too. No. 5 Montrose visits DHS at 3 p.m. Saturday.
kgrabwski@durangoherald.com
