It’s very early in the season, but the Durango boys golf team looks like it has the makings to compete at the top of 4A golf.
The Demons won their opening tournament at Cortez and continued their winning ways on Thursday with a win at the Delta tournament at Devil’s Thumb Golf Course in Delta.
Durango finished with a team score of 226 from its top three golfers. Aspen was close behind with a 228 and Battle Mountain finished third with a 243.
“You never know with it being our second tournament of the year,” Durango boys golf head coach Kirk Rawles said. “But a win is a win. It’s awesome and collectively we were +10 over par as a team. That’s going to be pretty competitive pretty much in any tournament you get into. I didn’t have many expectations up there. I wanted to collect numbers and see where everybody’s at.”
The Demons haven’t been up to Devil’s Thumb in four or five years. Rawles said it’s a cool golf course that’s on a mesa above Delta. It’s not a traditional golf course. He described it as a moonscape with a lot of elevation change with some drivable downhill par 4s.
After losing the opening tournament by one stroke, sophomore Durango golfer Drew Jepson won the tournament with a +1-over-par 73. Rawles was happy to see Jepson bounce back after a rough start in which he was +4 through six holes. He had four birdies in his round and finished his second nine with a 35. His awareness, adaptability and demeanor for his age continue to impress Rawles.
Different players have continued to show off the Demons’ depth behind Jepson. At Delta, it was junior Nolan Pace. He finished one shot behind Jepson with a 74 for second place. Pace had the 14th-best average score on last year’s team.
“He has put in an incredible amount of time,” Rawles said about Pace. “He’s chosen golf as his sport. He’s gone from a 14-handicap to a 4-handicap in a year. He’s really put the time in it takes in the offseason to step up and make that happen.”
Pace also had four birdies and shot 35 on his second nine like Jepson. Rawles said it’s phenomenal for those two players to shoot that on a course they were playing for the first time.
Rawles brought 10 players to the Delta tournament split up into two teams. With 67 players on the Durango team, all the players are battling to have the scores necessary to play in future matches and hopefully make the regionals team.
Junior Carter Hansen and senior Ben Ogden tied for eighth with a 79.
Next up for the Demons is the Montrose tournament on Wednesday and Thursday. Rawles will take his top seven players there.
Then Durango will host the Durango Tournament at Hillcrest Golf Club on Monday. Rawles thinks around 30 of his players will play that day and it’ll be a quick turnaround to another tournament at Cortez on Tuesday.
Demons softball loses first two games, bounces back for blowout win in third
It wasn’t the start to the season the Durango softball team wanted but the team ended its first road trip on a high note.
The Demons lost on the road 9-6 and 17-2 against Eagle Valley on Friday. Then on Saturday, Durango bounced back to beat Basalt 21-1 for the first win of the season.
In the first game against Eagle Valley, Durango sophomore Avery Clair went 3-4 with two RBIs. Sophomore Marcela Jimenez went 2-3 and senior Molly Best went 2-4 from the plate.
Durango ended up outhitting Eagle Valley 12-11 but dug itself too big of a hole early. The Demons were down 6-0 after three innings. They scored five runs in the last three innings to close the margin to 9-6.
“It came down to errors,” Durango softball head coach Sara Clair said about the first game. “There were too many extra outs. They came out playing small ball right away and caught our corners off-guard. We settled in by the second inning with the small ball. It was a lot of bunts and slaps. They’d draw us in with a bunt and then slap it over the third base’s head. By the middle of the second inning, Mya (Trujillo) and Avery (Clair) settled in with that. We were able to shut it down but by then the damage was done.”
Clair complimented senior Jenna Glueck’s pitching performance after she finished with five strikeouts. Clair also pointed out how Glueck only gave up five earned runs and therefore if all went well, the Demons should’ve won 6-5.
The second game wasn’t a contest as Eagle Valley scored 11 runs in the first inning and six runs in the second inning to end the game early. Clair said the team struggled with errors again. Freshman pitcher Abigail Gordon struggled in her debut and allowed 10 runs and 14 hits.
In the third game, Durango dealt out the punishment and scored four runs in the first, 12 in the second and five in the third inning to end the game early. Clair hit the first home run of the season for the Demons and seven Durango players had multiple hits.
The Demons played at Alamosa on Tuesday but stats weren’t available at press time. After that, Durango travels to Montrose on Friday for two games.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
