Titans lacrosse opens second year of play

First home game on Wednesday, March 16 in Gunnison

[  by Than Acuff  ]

Last spring, amongst all of the COVID sports season rescheduling, the Crested Butte Titans high school lacrosse program was born. Lacrosse first came to the valley through the local club, the West Elk Warriors. Last year, it made the jump to a high school sport thanks to the existence of the West Elk club athletics director Jarrod Hinton and the energy and knowledge of Buck Seling.

Seling has a long history with the sport having played in high school in Maryland, in college at Mount Saint Mary’s University and when he moved to Colorado in 1999, Seling was instrumental in building high school lacrosse at ThunderRidge high school and throughout the Highlands Ranch area of Denver.

Seling then moved to Crested Butte seven years ago and started helping out with the West Elk club program when and where needed including a season at the u10 level. Once he heard the high school was starting a program, he jumped at the chance and the team started off with a JV schedule in its inaugural year.

“Overall, it was a very satisfying year, the kids got a lot of game opportunities,” says Seling.

This year they are still required by the state high school activities board to compete one more season at the JV level and after a strong season last year, Seling has seen a slight bump in numbers for the program and things are looking even stronger as they jump into the varsity fray for the 2023 season.

“I’ve got 27 players so we’re growing,” says Seling. “And I only have one senior and I’m hearing that I may have as many as 15 freshmen next year. I’m really trying to get to 40 players so we can have both a varsity and JV next year.”

Of those 27 this year, he only has five from Gunnison High School so, as he continues to work with the team this year, he will also look to try and build more interest in Gunnison.

“We end up practicing and playing a lot of our games in Gunnison so I was just hoping we’d have a lot more participation from Gunnison,” says Seling. “Get more of a co-op going between the two schools.”

The school district grounds crew got to work removing snow from the fields in Gunnison and the team was able to start preseason workouts on Monday, February 28 on grass. With hockey and basketball still in season, numbers were somewhat limited at the start but the team is slowly reaching full strength and they’ve already played some games as Seling took 16 players to play in three scrimmages on Saturday, March 5 at the Air Academy in Colorado Springs.

“It was an excellent experience,” says Seling. “Long day but very successful.”

Eric Walker was a volunteer coach last year but has jumped on as the assistant coach this year and the coaches are doing what they can to get the team prepared for a season of 14 games as well as a C team tournament.

“We’re trying to get them throwing and catching but we also installed an offense and a defense and they’re getting the concepts down,” says Seling. “Conditioning is still lacking though.”

In addition, the team got a bump from some younger players who have experience and they have a face off specialist, a key component to a successful lacrosse team. On the other hand, the team was dealt a blow as they are without a goalie, another key component to a successful program.

“We’re lacking a goalie but some are trying the position out,” says Seling. “I’m very excited about having a face off specialist. What’s really encouraging is I have a couple of kids new to the sport and they are really liking it.”

Field conditions pending, the Titans open their season at home on Wednesday, March 16 at 4:30 p.m. when they host the Telluride JV team. The following week they have two more home games as they host Vanguard on Tuesday, March 22 and Summit on Wednesday, March 23.

“I’m expecting big things,” says Seling. “I’m trying to give them as much game experience as possible and to get their stick skills to match kids in other programs that have been playing a lot longer.”