4A Ice Hockey: Durango Secures School’s First Ice Hockey State Championship

DENVER – For a new program, the Durango ice hockey team didn’t waste any time rising to the top of Class 4A.

On Tuesday night at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena, the second-year CHSAA program claimed its first-ever Colorado high school ice hockey state championship with a 4-2 win over Summit. But while it may seem like a rapid rise to the top, the Durango hockey program’s success has been building for quite some time in one form or another.

“We’re in the southwest corner, so we were working prior to CHSAA with Texas teams and New Mexico high schools,” Durango head coach Brian Ensign said. “We had a couple Rio Grande High School Hockey championships. The competition kind of depleted there a little bit. People were going AAA and doing other things. So, it was really nice to bring this team over here.

“It sounds like a second-year program, but we’ve been building hockey in the Four Corners for a while.”

Fourth-seeded Durango’s Henry Howe gave the Demons an early lead, scoring a goal with 13 minutes, 30 seconds left in the first period off an assist by Dylan LaBorde. With 9:01 left in the second period, Brady Holbrook put the Demons up a pair with a goal assisted by Lucas Beta and Mason Rhodus. Just 16 seconds later, Wynn Daniels expanded Durango’s lead to 3-0 with a goal assisted by Loudon Doemland and Bryson Quimby.

No. 10 Summit got on the board with 5:10 left in the second period when Cole Stuckey scored, assisted by Eli Powers, and cut the Demons’ lead to 3-1. Summit pulled within a goal with 17 seconds left in the game with Graham Schuman scoring, assisted by Jevin Palmquist, but the Tigers couldn’t net the equalizer and Durango’s Lucas Betz added a fourth goal for the Demons with one second left on the clock.

Not bad for a team in Durango that rarely even gets to practice as a full team since the roster is made up of players from both Durango and Telluride.

“We’re doing two separate practices for most of the week and then we get together every so often and we have a three-hour or longer practice,” Ensign said. “A lot of my coaching is done on the bench. I coordinate with the coaches in Telluride that are on our roster, they know what we’re working on, they know the drills and we go from there.”

To reach the championship game, Durango defeated last year’s state champion (No. 5 Cheyenne Mountain) in the quarterfinals and knocked off this year’s top seed (No. 1 Glenwood Springs) in the semifinals.

Holbrook led the CHSAA postseason with seven points. Howe was second with six.

A win for Summit on Tuesday would also have marked the Tigers’ first ice hockey title.

Cheyenne Mountain is the all-time leader in Colorado with 16 state championships.

In the opposite semifinal, Summit won 4-3 over No. 3 Liberty.