{"id":48533,"date":"2021-02-18T21:12:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T04:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-girls-race-past-montezuma-cortez-to-start-big-week\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:43:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:43:26","slug":"durango-girls-race-past-montezuma-cortez-to-start-big-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-girls-race-past-montezuma-cortez-to-start-big-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango girls race past Montezuma-Cortez to start big week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango sophomore Kyle Rowland dribbles the ball around M-CHS junior Siren Utecht during her team\u2019s victory on Wednesday night.<\/span>Ian MacLaren\/For The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Determined to put his team in the driver\u2019s seat from the start, Durango High School girls basketball coach Tim Fitzpatrick implemented a full-court press throughout much of the first half of his team\u2019s road matchup against Montezuma-Cortez High School on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Demons overwhelmed the young Panthers squad with non-stop pressure while beginning the game on a 25-2 run and never looked back on their way to a decisive 63-18 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a tough schedule, we\u2019ve lost four games by a total of 11 points,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cWe had a really good practice last night and then to come out and start the game like we did tonight was good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading scorers for Durango, which played several bench players during most of the second half, included sophomore Mason Rowland, who scored a game-high 20 points, and junior Sydney Flores, who netted 12 points in the contest.<\/p>\n

While M-CHS struggled to score points throughout the evening, the Panthers did receive a solid offensive performance from junior Justina Bayles, who scored 10 points to lead her team through what she admitted was a tough matchup.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The Durango full-court press) was just really overwhelming,\u201d Bayles said. \u201cWe have a press break, but we were just so overwhelmed with everything that was going on, and we didn\u2019t know how to set it up. We just fell apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the ability to score in transition factored heavily into the Demons\u2019 win, so, too, did the team\u2019s ability to drain field goals from beyond the 3-point line as Durango players combined to hit five long bombs.<\/p>\n

\"M-CHS
M-CHS freshman Savannah Haselroth brings the ball down during her team&#x2019;s game against Durango on Wednesday.<\/span>Ian MacLaren\/For The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe were taking shots that were open, and I think we just need to keep doing that in our games to come,\u201d said Rowland when asked about her team\u2019s shooting barrage.<\/p>\n

Complementing Durango\u2019s outside shooting with an impressive post attack was Flores, who was nearly unstoppable throughout the game\u2019s opening quarter, during which she scored eight points and grabbed numerous offensive boards.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Flores) was hurt and now she has come back and she is full strength,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cShe has really improved and worked on being powerful inside and being aggressive. It really showed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

M-CHS did give its small home crowd something to cheer about during a solid final quarter during which they played the Demons to a 4-4 tie.<\/p>\n

A jump shot by Bayles to begin the final quarter made the score 59-16 in favor of the Demons, and the Panthers sophomore later closed out the game with a free throw after time had expired to cut her team\u2019s final deficit to 45 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at the end, we really pulled through and showed unity,\u201d Bayles said. \u201cLately, we\u2019ve been seen as the underdogs and we just really want to come up from that. We\u2019re trying to find that chemistry. Slowly, we\u2019re getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

With their record standing at 2-4 overall and 1-2 in the 3A Intermountain League following their lopsided loss to the Demons, the Panthers will look to put a check mark in the win column when they face off against Alamosa at home Friday.<\/p>\n

Durango (3-4, 0-2 5A\/4A Southwestern League) will return to game action at home against Montrose on Friday and against Grand Junction Central on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fitzpatrick pleased with Demons\u2019 63-18 victory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,592,36,427,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-durango-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-prep-sports","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87400,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48533\/revisions\/87400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48533"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}