Titan varsity basketball team rolls through 5A opponents

Big home game Saturday, December 13 at 2:30 p.m.

The Crested Butte Titans boys basketball team opened their season spending four hours in a Suburban at the top of Monarch Pass—it would take 10 hours total to get to Denver, as road crews dealt with an overturned cattle truck.
Once the road was cleared, the team rolled onto Denver on Friday, December 5 to face George Washington, a 5A Denver school.
Sensing that a game against the George Washington varsity may have been far beyond the reach of the Titans, the team scheduled a game against a mix of their JV/C team.
In the end, it turned out the other way, as the Titans rolled to a 48-15 win over the young George Washington squad.
Seniors John Wright and Robbie Holleran led the Titan scorers with 22 points apiece and senior Chris Sharpe battled his illness to put up four points.
Sophomore Sky Egelhoff started his first game as point guard with five assists and one turnover, and senior Jake Grogg played tough defense.
“Our defense was solid,” says Titans head coach Robin Loyed. “We would have preferred to play a tougher team.”
The Titans then headed to Longmont on Saturday, December 6 to face another 5A opponent, Silver Creek High School.
While the Titans opponent opted to play a mix of non-starters also, Silver Creek’s numbers looked intimidating with three players on their game roster coming in at 6’8”, 6’4” and 6’3”.
Silver Creek was well aware of Wright placing their 6’8” player on him and fouling Wright whenever possible.
The ploy blew up in their face as Loyed moved Wright out to the wing, where his speed proved too much for his defender.
“They just couldn’t stay with John,” says Loyed.
They did manage to put Wright on the free throw line a total of 19 times but that failed to stop Wright, as he hit 17 of his 19 attempts for a team leading 28 points.
Holleran dropped in 24 points and Sharpe scored 11 points including three for four from three-point range as the Titans cruised to a 68-36 win.
While the games were blowouts, Loyed managed to pull some insight from the match-ups.
“We got a sense for how teams are going to try to stay with John and Robbie, and we’re ready for it,” says Loyed.
In addition, both Egelhoff and Grogg proved they’re ready for varsity action and Sharpe will prove to be deadly from outside when teams collapse on Wright and Holleran.
The Titans face Centennial on the road on Friday, December 12 and then play their first home game on Saturday, December 13 when they host rival Creede.
“We know Creede well,” says Loyed. “They’re deep and experienced. They’re going to be a difficult match-up.”