Crested Butte Titans lacrosse opens season in Aspen

Catch the action at CBCS this Saturday at noon

[ by Than Acuff ]

The Crested Butte Titans lacrosse team continues to take steps toward a vibrant future for the program having played in their first game of their first season last Saturday, May 8 in Aspen when they squared off against the Steamboat Springs C team and after a shaky first half, they got their feet underneath them for a strong second half before falling 11-5.

“The speed of the game was overwhelming and we were unable to run with Steamboat in the first half,” says coach Buck Seling.
The Titans have had a slow start to their season as players continue to join the program each week while others are coming to terms with the level of commitment necessary to get the program going, including simply introducing a new game to several of the athletes. As a result, preparing the entire team for the first game of the season was tough the week leading up.

“Workouts were great but we had limited time with several players who were unavailable or just joined us from soccer,” says Seling. “I had four soccer players join but had only seen them play three days.”

In addition, Seling was missing some players to family commitments and since they were playing a “C” level team, seniors and juniors were prohibited from playing.

“I have four attackmen but couldn’t play three of them because it was a C level game,” explains Seling. “I was down to 14 players in each quarter.”

With so much to cover in the first three weeks of the season and players joining the program throughout those three weeks, Seling kept instructions prior to the game fairly simple for his players.

“I just wanted to let them play,” says Seling.

Down 9-1 at the half, Seling continued to keep the plan simple for his team as they took the field for the second half and they started to pick up more and more aspects of the game as the contest continued.

“I asked the players to relax and just play the game and not be concerned with the score,” says Seling. “There were not any big changes except that we were able to hit the net with better shot selection and won the second half 4-2.”

Besides the speed of play, Seling also felt a majority of his team still needs additional conditioning as they move forward this season and plans on moving into that aspect of the game in the next week.

“The soccer players were well-conditioned and gave us a lot of quality minutes but our lack of conditioning showed,” says Seling. “There’s just so much to work on but we’re getting on the conditioning this week.”

In the end both Weston Miller and Ty Pulliam provided time in net for the Titans while Brendan Hartigan led the team with two goals and an assist, Blue Gardner scored a goal and recorded one assist, Ace Gaither tallied two assists and Logan Breiner and Jack Pierson each scored one apiece while Henry Hubbard remained the workhorse all game long at midfield.

Seling did see several positives from his teams’ effort as a handful of players surprised him with their abilities in a game situation as well as the teams’ discipline as they were tapped for just two penalties all game. As a result, Seling sees a bright future as they make their way through the inaugural season of Titan lacrosse.

“For our very first time assembling a team of players with a variety of experience and many not playing lacrosse in over three years, I can see promise in the future as we continue to learn the game and improve our lacrosse skills and conditioning,” says Seling.

The Titans have their first of two home games this season on Saturday, May 15 when they host the Montrose JV at the Crested Butte Community School at high noon. In addition to the game, parents are planning a barbeque to celebrate the start of lacrosse at the high school. Given the make up of the squad, another full week of practices and their opponent, Seling will have far more to work with in their second game of the season.

“It was nice to see where we are in our development and what we need to focus on for our next game,” says Seling. “We will definitely have a deeper bench.”