Titans soccer closes out regular season on top

Headed to state tournament

[ by Than Acuff ]

The Crested Butte Titans soccer team finished out regular season play last weekend with a win and a tie to finish with a record of 7-1-2 winning the Mountain League title and punching their ticket to the state tournament. They head into the post season the #2 seed and will host Heritage Christian on Saturday, April 24 on Western Colorado University’s new turf field. The start time has yet to be set.

The Titans kicked things off on Friday, April 16 hosting Caprock Academy at the Gunnison High School field. Caprock had just returned to varsity play this season and have had a rough go with their reintroduction.

Despite the week in and week out lopsided losses, Caprock came into the game fired up showing no signs of wearing down.
“They were playing a little better and were definitely a little more physical,” says Titans senior captain Gabi Marmolejo.

Crested Butte opened the scoring six minutes into the game when Ace Gaither drove a corner kick right into the mixer and Jacob Bernholtz settled the ball to fire it past the Caprock goalie. Six minutes later the Titans struck again as Marmolejo chased down a loose ball and blasted his shot through traffic and into the back of the net. It took another six minutes before the Titans struck again when Bernholtz took a long ball pass from Baden Garmhausen and chipped it over the keeper for a 3-0 lead.

Caprock’s effort slowed the Titans down a bit as the half wore on but Nathan Sawyer and Blue Gardner each found the back of the net in the final five minutes of the half for a 5-0 lead.

The Titans turned to their bench to get some key minutes in for developing players and then closed the game with their starting line up to secure one last goal from Bernholtz finishing off the 6-0 win.

“We all worked hard and worked on things that we needed to improve upon,” says Marmolejo. “Plus, we were able to give some experience to the younger guys to step up and improve.”

Crested Butte then hit the road the next day to finish the regular season with a game against the Ridgway Demons. The Demons were celebrating their seniors at the game and were determined to take down the Titans in their last game outpacing Crested Butte and controlling possession throughout the first half. Fortunately, the Titans defense held strong and the game remained a scoreless tie heading into halftime.

“I don’t think we expected them to outwork us as much as they did in the midfield,” says Marmolejo. “We were sleeping.”

The Titans mixed things up for the second half and started to take back control of the game but the move from midfield to attack continued to stall in the offensive third. A couple opportunities slipped past the Titans as the game continued and after the second half and two overtimes, the teams finished with a 0-0 draw.

“Once we figured out how they were playing we woke up and played better knowing we had to get our head in the game,” says Marmolejo.

“Hopefully they learned that to be able to compete against a tough team, everyone must show up ready to play with intensity and the fire to win,” says coach Bob Piccaro.

The Titans now have the next challenge set before them with the opening round state tournament game against Heritage Christian.
“We have so much potential and still haven’t played our best,” says Marmolejo. “We need to remember to have fun and play the game. At times we’re not really focused and we need to be prepared right at the start of each game.”

“Hopefully they’re ready to push themselves to new levels to be able to compete in the playoffs,” says Piccaro.