The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Enter district tournament the number one seed
The Lady Titans closed the regular season with a 39-22 win over the Holy Trinity Tigers on Saturday, February 21 to finish with a record of 16-3, 11-1 in league play, and earned the number one seed at the district tournament this weekend.
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After a stunning loss two weeks ago, the Lady Titans returned to their old ways, led by some motivational words from the seniors.
“I think the seniors laid down the law,” says coach MaryMike Haley.
The result was a much more solid team effort from players all across the board and a return to the team’s season-long strategy of damaging their opponents early with tough defense.
The last time the two teams met, the Tigers gave Crested Butte a brief scare as they relied heavily on one all-star player to do most of their scoring.
This time around, Haley looked to senior Allie McFarland to guard the Tiger’s high scorer and inspire tough defense from the rest of the team—and that’s just what McFarland did.
“Allie just shut her down defensively,” says Haley.
The rest of the team followed suit, as the Lady Titans held Holy Trinity to just two points in the first quarter, building a 12-2 lead.
By the close of the first half, the Lady Titans were sitting on a comfortable 22-12 lead.
Haley looked to her team to continue their defensive pressure coming out of halftime, and they responded to hold Holy Trinity scoreless the entire third quarter.
With the post-season on the horizon, Haley turned to her bench players in the fourth quarter to give them key game experience, and Crested Butte closed with the 39-22 win.
Senior Emma Vosburg led the team with 18 points, followed by sophomore Shannon Holleran, who scored nine points and pulled down nine rebounds.
“They’re a little bit more focused,” says Haley. “We’ve been working all week on playing good defense and our defense was much more in tune.”
The Lady Titans now turn to the start of post-season play with the district tournament. They will open the tournament with a game against either Centennial or Moffat on Friday, February 27 at 6:30 p.m. at Adams State College in Alamosa.
Until then, Haley will continue to fine-tune the Lady Titans engine.
“The focus now is to just play to our strengths, focus on defense and pick up our level of play,” says Haley. “It’s the little things that just kill us in the long run. We have a chance to be district champs, which has never happened. If we show up for four solid quarters we should dominate, but we need to show up.”
