The Durango High School boys and girls basketball teams finished the nonleague part of their schedules with wins at Pagosa Springs on Tuesday night. The similarities ended there.
Durango’s girls squad won 34-27 in a low-scoring, defensive battle after four games in six days. The boys fired on all cylinders in their fourth game in six days and won 75-46.
Despite the low-scoring affair, the girls improved to 11-2 overall with the win while Pagosa Springs fell to 5-4.
“The two things that really helped us, one was our defense; to hold that team to 27 points is definitely something to be proud of,” Durango girls basketball head coach Lauren Moran said. “They're a senior-heavy team that has numerous guards that have the capability of scoring. So we really locked down defensively. They couldn’t get a lot of high-percentage looks. So that was huge and they’re strong defensively as well. That's why it was a pretty low-scoring game. The second piece is we did a really nice job of taking care of the basketball down the stretch when we were up by a couple of baskets.”
Senior guard Mariah Maestas led Durango with 13 points and junior guard Claire Goodwin had 10 points.
Pagosa Springs senior Kylie Ketchum had 16 points to lead the Pirates.
The Demons led 9-8 after the first quarter and extended their lead to 20-18 at halftime. Durango led 29-23 after three quarters before finishing the game up 34-27.
Moran said the key defensively was forcing difficult shots.
Durango has won 10 games in a row after the Pagosa Springs win and the team’s three wins in Canon City.
On Thursday, Durango beat Canon City 36-23. Goodwin led Durango with 14 points. The Demons led 11-6 after the first quarter before leading 17-11 at halftime. Durango continued to increase its lead and led 24-17 after three quarters.
Next for the Durango girls basketball team was Pueblo East on Friday and the Demons took care of business 57-40. Goodwin could not be stopped and scored 26 points to lead Durango. She had five 3-pointers, including three in the fourth quarter.
The game was tied at 37 heading into the fourth quarter before Durango started the fourth on a run to pull away. Pueblo East’s Myah Abeyta finished with 17 points, all of which came in the first half.
On Saturday, the Demons ended the Canon City tournament with a 37-33 win over Falcon. Once again, the game was tied going into the fourth quarter before Durango took the victory.
Goodwin and sophomore Jaelyn Alston each had nine points to lead Durango. Goodwin scored her 1,000th career high school point in Canon City over the weekend.
Moran was happy with how her team played against some tough competition. The Demons have matched last season’s win total and are ranked fifth in 5A.
The boys improved to 9-4 overall with the win over Pagosa Springs after the Demons made 13 3-pointers. The Pirates fell to 1-8 overall with the loss. Durango’s 75 points is a season-high and are the most points in a game since Jan. 26, 2016, against Montezuma-Cortez.
“Our defense traveled and we got deflections,” Durango boys basketball head coach Alan Batiste said. “We started getting out on the open floor and started opening it up. We hit shots tonight.”
Senior guard Noah Miles led Durango with 21 points. Sophomore guard King Kerlin had 14 points on four 3-pointers and senior forward Otto Aalland had 14 points on four 3-pointers.
Batiste was happy with how the Demons moved the ball, especially in transition.
The Durango boys didn’t have the same success in the Canon City tournament as the girls did and finished 1-2.
“It was a learning lesson for all three of the games,” Batiste said. “It was a great tournament, a tough loss against Pueblo East. But again, they’re things that are fixable. We were 8-30 in the paint against Pueblo East. So that was a huge stat that we missed a lot of layups … then Cheyenne Mountain got down early but took the lead with like three minutes ago, But again, we showed some fight, some good signs for the boys. Overall, we're fine. I'm excited to go into league.”
Miles led the way as Durango beat Canon City 50-31 on Thursday. He had 26 points, including five 3-pointers in the first quarter.
Then Pueblo East beat Durango 60-48 on Friday. The Demons led 8-7 after the first quarter and trailed 21-19 at the half. But the Eagles outscored Durango 39-29 in the second half.
Batiste was happy with his team’s defense against Pueblo East but he credited the Eagles with making contested shots and a lot of 3-pointers.
Kerlin led Durango against Pueblo East with 13 points. Aalland had 11 and Miles was limited to six.
Jaden Garcia led the Eagles with 20 points and went 6-13 from 3-point range. Pueblo East shot 48% from 3-point range.
Cheyenne Mountain beat Durango 50-46 on Saturday. Individual stats were unavailable.
The girls and the boys open 6A/5A Southwestern League play against Palisade at home on Friday. The girls play at 5:30 p.m. and the boys at 7 p.m.
bkelly@durangoherald.com