A misplaced hand here and a penalty kick there were enough to hand the Bayfield High School girls soccer team its first losing streak of the season Thursday against the Durango High School junior varsity team.
Chloe Ciotti scored the game’s only goal from the penalty spot 15 minutes into the first half to give the Class 4A Demons’ JV a 1-0 victory at Riverview Sports Complex.
“It could be the one chance you get, so you’ve got to make sure and place it,” said Ciotti, daughter of Jay and Suzanne Ciotti. “You don’t want to show the keeper where you’re going.”
DHS received the penalty kick after an inadvertent handball by BHS in the box.
The Wolverines, a Class 3A program, started to press for an equalizer. They sent long balls over the Demons’ defense and tried to run under them because the defense was playing a fairly high line.
Gusting winds made completing those passes difficult.
“We couldn’t get a good, solid shot on goal,” BHS head coach Jen Zelinski said. “Their keeper played way off the line, so I told the girls to shoot. It turned into boot ball.”
BHS (6-2) managed to get seven shots after the half and put four of them on frame; Durango’s keeper duo of Ryleigh Fenn and Sydney Maddox saved all of them.
“We weren’t playing like a team like we usually do,” said BHS midfielder Sonja Fleming, daughter of Mark and Merrilee Fleming. “We were peaking when the ball came to us individually, but we weren’t quite playing together like we normally have the chemistry to do.”
BHS dropped its second consecutive game against a Class 4A team after they lost to Montezuma-Cortez 4-0 on Tuesday at home.
BHS started the season 6-0 and are ranked No. 1 in Class 3A by MaxPreps.com and received votes in the CHSAANow.com top 10.
“It wouldn’t do us any good to go out and play teams we know we could beat all year long,” Zelinski said. “We need the challenge; we need the competition, because when we get to playoffs, these are the types of teams we’re going to play.”
BHS will return to Class 3A Intermountain League play at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Center (3-3-1).
“The biggest thing we need to work on is being first to the ball,” Zelinski said. “And we’ve got to start passing it better.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
