Durango clinches No. 2 seed

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005 | 9:56 a.m.

The Durango girls' basketball team struggled for the first three quarters before putting away Spring Valley 58-47 on Wednesday to secure the second seed in the Southwest Division playoffs.

Shayla Martinez led the Trailblazers with 23 points and teammate Darshelle Lynch added 10.

Durango coach John Bartleson also singled out the performance of Lindy LaRocque.

"I think she makes everyone around her play better," Bartleson said of LaRocque.

Bartleson said the team was "kind of flat" for the first three quarters, then turned it on in the fourth quarter. Despite coming out kind of relaxed and not playing well, they put it together and played better basketball and got the victory.

The Trailblazers improve their record to 9-2 in the Southwest Division and Spring Valley fell to 4-7 in the division.

Durango will play its final regular-season game against Clark, and Bartleson feels that his team will have to play better than it did Wednesday night in order to finish the season strong.

"We want to finish playing well, playing hard," Bartleson said.

Shirin Turujman had 18 points for Spring Valley.

Palo Verde improved to 6-3 in the division and Shadow Ridge fell to 5-4.

Stacey Toth had 15 points for the Mustangs, who will play at Cimarron-Memorial on Friday for their last game.

Mary Medley had 10 points in the win against the Warriors.

Individual scoring information was not reported.