Durango High School boys lacrosse’s offense has had its ups and downs this season, but the Demons picked the perfect time to have their best scoring game of the season on Saturday against Montrose.
The Demons sent their 16 seniors out in style on senior day, scoring a season-high 13 goals to beat the Red Hawks, 13-6.
After a back-and-forth first half in which the game was tied late in the second quarter, Durango dominated possession in the second half. The Demons moved the ball well, beat their defender and forced Montrose into plenty of turnovers and bad shots. Durango outscored Montrose 6-0 in the second half for its biggest win of the season.
“It was amazing,” Durango head coach Valeria Skarbek said. “It was exactly how I wish they had been all season; they are fantastic. I was so glad to see them play in their best. They finally hit their stride at the second-to-last game of the season.”
Durango improved to 3-8 overall and 2-7 in the 4A Mountain League with the win. Senior Bradin Gurule scored three goals for the Demons, senior Wynn Daniels scored two goals and senior Henry Huff scored two goals for Durango. Junior Logan Muraro was the team’s primary playmaker, finishing with a goal and at least three assists.
The Red Hawks dropped to 0-11 overall and 0-8 in the 4A Mountain League. Senior Maverick Powers led Montrose with four goals.
Before the game started, the Demons had their senior-day ceremony. Skarbek said she’ll miss her seniors and credited them with adjusting to her coaching style over the past two seasons.
Montrose was the first team to find the back of the net. After multiple missed shots, Powers finally put one on cage with a mid-release ripper from about 10 yards out to put the Red Hawks up 1-0 with 10:31 left.
It didn’t take Durango long to respond. The Demons caused a turnover, then started their offense from X. Durango moved the ball well, causing the Montrose defense to slide. The ball got to Muraro on the left side, and he performed a great face dodge before finishing to tie the game with 8:57 left in the first quarter.
Montrose did a great job on faceoffs early, allowing it to get more possessions than the Demons. Durango could not stop Powers early, as he had a great combination of size and speed to get to the goal. Two more goals by Powers allowed Montrose to take a 3-2 lead with 4:47 left in the first.
“He’s a great player,” Skarbek said about Powers. “He’s a really nice kid … we love playing Montrose because they’re really fun and they really do it for the fun of the game … He scored a lot in the beginning because he was able to roll off. We kept trying to lock him down, and he was just hard to get ahold of.”
Durango finally won a faceoff, and it resulted in a goal. Gurule was rewarded for a great cut and he scored to tie the game with 3:59 left in the first. Scoring wasn’t the problem for the Demons; it was getting the ball on the draw and out of Powers’ stick. Muraro facilitated, finding Jak Phetsrthong in front of the goal for the easy finish to retake the lead, 4-3, with 2:21 left in the quarter.
Luckily for Durango, no Red Hawks other than Powers were very accurate with their shots, resulting in turnovers. Henry Huff had a nice finish as Durango led 5-3 going into the second quarter.
Powers was the first to strike in the second quarter with 8:07 left in the half as both teams struggled with taking care of the ball. Durango wasn’t finding its cutters or beating its man in its set offense like it was in the first quarter, resulting in turnovers. Montrose scored in transition to tie the game at five with 3:10 left in the half.
Durango used its defense to power its offense late in the half. The Demons got in transition off a failed clear by Montrose. Daniels found Gurule on the crease for a 6-5 lead with 1:43 left in the first half. The teams played to their strengths at the end of the first half, with Montrose scoring off a faceoff win and Durango scoring in transition with Daniels with 23 seconds left for a 7-6 lead into the half.
The Demons struck nearly 30 seconds into the second half, with Bennett Sheer finishing from close range. Durango did a great job of dominating possession in the third by forcing turnovers, picking up ground balls and moving the ball better. Senior Nash Vincent capped off a 5-0 run with a goal off the feed from Muraro to give Durango an 11-6 lead going into the fourth.
“Alex Davis locked down Powers, and he did an amazing job,” Skarbek said. “Between Keegan Wilson and Alex … they were amazing … We just talked about coming out hard. We consistently don’t do well third quarter. It’s just a history for us where we just have a really hard time in the third quarter. We killed it today, so we really came out and did it.”
Freshman Noah Foutz got Durango on the board with 7:15 left in the fourth. Montrose’s offense was so out of rhythm with the consistent turnovers, pressure from Durango, poor shooting and Durango did better with faceoffs. Skarbek credited senior Austin Blake for doing a great job shifting positions to play great defense against Montrose.
The Demons were also much better than the Red Hawks at backing up their own shots and the Red Hawks’ shots. Sophomore Shae Morrisey had the final goal for Durango in the convincing victory.
Durango wraps up its regular season at Telluride on Saturday at noon.