The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Rise to the challenge
With weeks of regular ice time and a game on their home ice, the Gunnison Blades were poised to open the valley rivalry with the Crested Butte Wolfpack on top.
While the Blades benefit from having an indoor facility to hold a regular practice schedule, the Wolfpack is limited in their opportunities to practice. In fact, the Wolfpack had just one practice between their tournament in Craig two weeks ago and their game against Gunnison on Saturday, December 7.
As a result, coach John Mortell did all he could to have his team ready, given the circumstances.
“The best we could do was just psyche each other up verbally,” says Mortell, “run our power play and penalty kill the way they’re supposed to be run and run our offense with our systems in place.”
Still, it was all the Wolfpack could do to keep pace with the Blades in the first period. Gunnison dictated the pace and physicality of the game to take a 2-0 lead in the first period as Nicholas Koch and Joshua Wallin each scored on power play chances. Yet, despite the early deficit, the Wolfpack did not panic.
“Gunnison came out flying,” says Mortell. “We had to battle back and just keep our heads in the game and the upperclassmen did a great job of doing that.”
The momentum started to swing in the second period as the Wolfpack picked up the pace and physical play to match Gunnison’s. The pay-off came four and a half minutes into the second period as Sam Reaman scored off an assist from Liam Mortell.
The two teams traded off attacks for the entire second period with both Wolfpack goalie Montana Wiggins and Blades’ net minder Barrett Fuller coming up with key saves.
The Wolfpack continued to press and tied the game 12 minutes into the second period as Ashton Mabry lit the lamp off an assist from Josh Melnick. The two teams traded off a series of penalties the remainder of the second period but neither team could capitalize on the power play opportunities and they headed into the third period notched in a 2-2 tie.
“We turned it around in the second period, picked up the physical play and started winning battles for the puck,” says Mortell.
The Wolfpack penalty kill made the difference in the third period. Crested Butte played six of the first 14 minutes of the third period a man down but managed to hold off the Blades’ attack. With time waning down, a Gunnison penalty gave Crested Butte a power play situation to finish the game. The man advantage never really came to fruition until the final 11 seconds with a face-off in front of the Wolfpack’s net.
Ian Dethloff won the face-off and sent the puck up-ice to Dakota Wiggins, who broke free off the drop. Wiggins carried the puck inside the blue line and fired a shot off the goalie’s chest that popped up into the air. Dethloff followed and got crushed by a big hit but managed to swat the puck out of the air past the Blades’ goalie for the game-winning goal with just two seconds left on the clock, to seal the 3-2 win.
The Wolfpack will head to Ft. Collins this weekend for three non-league games against the Ft. Collins Junior Eagles. Crested Butte starts league play after the new year.
