The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We knew we had to play hard all three periods”
by Than Acuff
After splitting games the first two weekends of the season with Steamboat Springs and Aspen, the Crested Butte Titans hockey team ran roughshod over the Palmer Terrors 10-2 in Colorado Springs on Friday, December 20.
The Titans opened the season winning one of two against Steamboat and then followed with the same result in Aspen as coach Billy Watson was wrapping up preseason and trying to get the team prepared as players were dropping with illnesses.
“I thought those two weekends went alright,” says Watson. “Playing those teams back-to-back is tough. Splitting one and one wasn’t the outcome we wanted but following the Thanksgiving break we were missing guys and unable to install our systems. It’s hard to do that without the whole team.”
As the team prepared for their game with Palmer they still struggled with illness but Watson took what he saw from the first four games and started to get his team into the next phase of the season working with what he had for personnel.
“We’re still not 100-percent but we started working on some systems, learning them and mastering them before moving onto the next one,” says Watson. “We don’t want to throw too much at them at once.”
While more players were reeling from the flu, including a couple of key defensemen, the Titans headed to Colorado Springs for their game against Palmer and while Palmer is typically one of the softer programs in their schedule, Watson made sure to remind his players of the threat teams such as Palmer present.
“We knew what to expect and know their game,” says Watson. “We knew we had to play hard all three periods.”
The game started off well for the Titans as Graham Barrett scored in the opening minute of play, Joseph Stock scored two goals in a span of three minutes and Matthew Solanik netted a short-handed goal for a 4-0 Titans’ lead midway through the first period.
The Terrors managed to climb back in the game though as the period progressed as Crested Butte penalties gave Palmer a series of powerplays and they converted on two of them to cut Crested Butte’s lead in half by the end of the first period.
“We gave them a little bit of life in that first period and you can’t do that against teams like that,” says Watson. “We weren’t picking up guys in front of the net and I told them we needed to bear down, win the small battles have better presence in front of the net and stay out of the box.”
Crested Butte took Watson’s words to heart and implemented everything that he asked of them in the second period. Brendan Hartigan got the Titans back on the scoring track with a goal in the third minute of the second period, Braydon Duncan tacked on another goal in the 10th minute and Elijah Waters scored in the final minute of the period for a 7-2 Titans’ lead.
“Our breakouts were looking the best they’ve looked all season, we got our net front presence on offense and the defense did a much better job picking up their players in front of our net,” says Watson.
Crested Butte continued to pour it on in the third period as well dictating the pace of the game and executing both the big picture elements and following through on the smaller battles up and down the ice. Chris Myers added an eighth goal to the Titans total two minutes into the third period and both Solanik and Barrett each scored their second goals of the game to cap the 10-2 crushing. Goalie Shaughn Rourke finished the game with 16 saves.
The Titans have one more game before the holiday break against Woodland Park at and then return to action on January 3 when they host Chaparral in Gunnison.
