Late rally pushes Gaels past Durango

Nick Christensen

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 9:23 a.m.

For a while Wednesday, Durango's girls' basketball team looked like it might be the first local squad to crack the armor of the city's elite.

Up by six points well into the third quarter, the Trailblazers outhustled and outshot No. 2 Bishop Gorman for the first 18 minutes of the two teams' last regular-season meeting.

But midway through the third quarter Bishop Gorman finally answered the challenge, launching an 18-9 run to put away the upset-minded Blazers 78-65.

Durango ended the first quarter up 22-16, outrebounding the Gaels girls 9-2 in the process. The Blazers continued to roll in the second quarter, at one point taking a 10-point advantage before Gorman started chipping away.

"That's what we wanted to do, make good plays, play fired up on defense," Durango coach John Bartleson said. "We just ran out of gas. I'm not disappointed; we just ran out of gas."

The Gaels took a 55-54 lead late in the third quarter and never looked back. Their bench guided the rally, as reserves Ashley Gayle and Dee Gainor led their team in scoring with 14 points each.

"The good thing about being on the bench is we get to see everybody's weaknesses," Gayle said. "We knew to get tough on Lindy, but the rest of the team started heating up."

Durango's Lindy LaRocque led all scorers with 20 points, including two 3-pointers from five feet beyond the arc.

The challenge was a positive for Gorman coach Sheryl Krmpotich, whose Gaels have more or less blown out every opponent for the past month.

"I think it's great," Krmpotich said. "Everybody needs a challenge, everybody needs to play great competition. It does no good to blow out teams."