The Durango High School boys lacrosse program is improving, but its improvement wasn’t enough to take down Grand Junction. The Tigers pulled away in the second half and beat Durango 10-4 on Friday afternoon at Durango High School.
Senior goalie Alex Gnehm was phenomenal for the Demons, making save after save to keep Durango within striking distance in the first half. But the Demons’ offense could never get going and turned the ball over trying to go one-on-one. Gnehm couldn’t stop Grand Junction’s high-powered offense forever and the Tigers capitalized in transition to pull away.
“Junction is a great team,” Durango boys lacrosse head coach Valeria Skarbek said. “We know they're a great team … I'm impressed with how our team did for keeping them to only 10 goals, which is great … In the past, we were mercy-ruled. They kept it competitive and tomorrow, we're going to come back harder and ready to come at them.”
Durango dropped to 2-3 overall and 2-2 in the 4A Mountain League. Despite the loss, it was an improvement from last year; the Demons lost to Grand Junction by an average of 11.5 goals.
Senior midfielder JT Munger led the Demons with two goals. Senior attack Owen Muraro and junior attack Henry Huff each had a goal. Junior attack Sawyer Jones had an assist. Gnehm finished with 30 saves for Durango.
Grand Junction improved to 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the 4A Mountain League. The Tigers’ 10 goals on Friday were a season-low.
The Demons and the Tigers traded possessions early in the first quarter, with both teams struggling to connect multiple passes, mostly in transition.
Durango’s shot attempts were mostly from the outside and didn’t challenge the Grand Junction goalie early on. Grand Junction, on the other hand, had some great chances from close range, but Gnehm was dialed in from the beginning and made some big stops.
Ground balls were a battle that Durango was winning early on and led to breakaways. Grand Junction struck first with 4:53 left after a Tiger got a shot away from close range and found the left side of the net for a 1-0 lead.
Munger quickly responded with a beautiful shot from outside to tie the game with 3:16 left. Gnehm made a few great saves, including one man down late in the quarter, and the quarter ended 1-1.
“Alex was phenomenal,” Skarbek said about Gnehm. “He's a great leader on the team; he really helps us a lot because he keeps us pumped and going. Sometimes that's what we need to keep us going; we need to keep that enthusiasm. We're working on that.”
Grand Junction retook the lead 30 seconds into the second quarter from close range. Durango had a few good chances early in the second quarter but couldn’t find the back of the net. The Tigers had some good ball movement on offense and scored around the crease for a 3-1 lead with 6:44 left in the second quarter.
Durango struggled to move the ball and settled for some one-on-one play which hurt the Demons and led to turnovers. Grand Junction took advantage and scored in transition. The Tigers led 5-1 at halftime.
The Demons’ offensive struggles continued in the second half. Durango’s midfielders and attackers were holding onto the ball a second or two too long and were double-teamed and lost the ball. Grand Junction capitalized in transition for a 6-1 lead.
“We had some plays that we wanted to run that were not getting run,” Skarbek said. “We really want to try to attack those tomorrow … the hard part is we are still learning to work the ball around better and to run the plays that we have set up. Sometimes they get tunnel vision and don't execute the way they should.”
Durango scored its second goal with 1:54 left in the third quarter. Owen Muraro was guarded but found some space on the left side and found the top right corner of the net. Grand Junction led 7-2 after three quarters.
Munger scored a nice goal early in the fourth with an underhand rip to make it 7-3. But the Tigers had the response with three consecutive goals for a 10-3 lead.
The teams meet again on Saturday morning at Durango High School at 10 a.m.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
