The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Seal league title, punch ticket to post season
[ by Than Acuff ]
For the first time in a long time, the Crested Butte Titans soccer team sealed the league title with room to breathe as they took down both Telluride and the Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS) last weekend.
Oftentimes, the league title comes down to the final weekend of play and can involve some serious number crunching leaving coaches and players on edge before a league champion is declared.
But a strong 4-0 start to the season by the Titans set them up to seal the title this past weekend and they did the deed starting on Friday, April 9 in Telluride.
The Telluride field is notoriously small and provides the Telluride Miners a serious home field advantage as they are adept at midfield ball pressure and turning that pressure into quick counter attacks.
The Titans looked to alleviate that pressure by working the ball to the flanks but the Miners were quick on the flanks and closed off the space in the midfield there as well.
Once the Titans accepted the fact that the game would be a grind, they started to use quick ball movement and speed up top to crack the seal on the Miners’ team play. A couple of quick passes sent Jacob Bernholtz loose to the corner and he found Gabi Marmolejo inside the 18-yard box with a low cross and Marmolejo tapped it home for a 1-0 Titans’ lead eight minutes into the game.
Five minutes later, Blue Gardner turned to pick off a pass at the top of the 18-yard box and drilled his shot near post past the Miner keeper for a 2-0 lead.
The Miners looked both up the middle and down the side to try and get past Crested Butte’s defense but the back line of Eric Lain, Rowan McIntyre and Otto Billingsley remained tight in shape and goalie Alex Eldridge’s effort in net turned away the Telluride attack on numerous occasions.
Following 20 minutes of erratic play from both teams creating a stalemate, Crested Butte finished the first half with one more goal. The striker corps continued to hassle the Miner defenders and when Marmolejo knocked the ball loose off a Telluride player, Gardner jumped on the free ball to punch it past the Miner keeper for a 3-0 lead at halftime.
Telluride never gives in though and the threat of a comeback always looms but Crested Butte’s defense and the work of their strikers up top helped keep Telluride off balance as Crested Butte held on through the second half for the 3-0 win.
“The keys were the offense working hard off balls sent their way and the team working the ball to where it should go a higher percentage of the time,” says coach Bob Piccaro. “And a tough defense that would not break.”
Crested Butte then returned to the Gunnison Valley to host CRMS on Saturday, April 10 and found quite a different opponent than they had faced earlier in the season.
When the two teams met in the first week of league play, Crested Butte cruised to a fairly comfortable 4-0 win. But CRMS had been surging as of late and brought their “A” game to the field against the Titans causing some havoc among the Titan squad.
CRMS took control of the pace and play in the first 15 minutes leaving the Titans scrambling to step up to match CRMS. Once again, the back line of Crested Butte and keeper Eldridge did what they needed to do while the rest of the team regrouped.
Cedar Fessenden and Baden Garmhausen stepped onto the field off the bench and brought some cohesion to the team midway through the first half with Ace Gaither causing trouble on the flank. Gaither’s effort eventually paid off as he was taken down inside the 18-yard box to earn the Titans a penalty kick in the 31st minute. Marmolejo stepped into the spot to take the shot and buried it to the low corner for a 1-0 lead.
Six minutes later a clearing header from Fessenden led to a clearing ball by Garmhausen and Marmolejo and Bernholtz jumped at the opportunity to send Marmolejo to the corner with the ball. Marmolejo then sent a low cross into the 18-yard box to find Bernholtz crashing and Bernholtz finished it off for a 2-0 Titans’ lead at halftime.
The Titans midfield then stepped up to battle against the CRMS speed in the second half and Crested Butte maintained their composure and effort to hold their lead the entire second half and secure the win.
“The team had to get its bearings after traveling for Friday’s game but once they realized they had a game against a very good squad, they woke up and played with intensity,” says Piccaro.
The two wins improved the Titans record to 6-0 in league play and sealed the league title with two games still remaining as they host Caprock on Friday, April 16 at 4 p.m. and then finish the regular season on the road against Ridgway on Saturday, April 17.
The season continues for the Titans following those final two games as the league title earned Crested Butte a spot at the state tournament, which begins on Saturday, April 24. As timing would have it, that first round game is also during the school’s April break.
“We’re banged up and bruised but we still have two games to play before the tournament,” says Piccaro. “Some players will be gone for the break and missing the first round but the team continues building character each week and getting some grit.”
