The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We just couldn’t connect the midfield with the forwards successfully”
[ by Than Acuff ]
After dropping their opening game to the Basalt Longhorns 4-2 on Friday, August 19, the Crested Butte Titans boys soccer team rebounded the following day to cruise to a 10-0 win over the Alamosa Mean Moose.
The Titans had just wrapped up preseason workouts fleshing out a new formation, bringing the freshmen up to speed as well as shaking the dust off as they entered the season’s first matches testing their readiness.
“There’s always so much to work on with not enough time to work on it,” says coach Bob Piccaro. “A majority of the players were looking okay, some still looked lacking in conditioning and others looked green.”
Basalt is always a good test piece as they often bring a faster, more wide-open game to the field which can cause the Titans fits as they try to establish a more possession-based style of play. The initial deliberate but composed effort of the Titans paid off 11 minutes into the game as Baden Garmhausen collected a loose ball 35 yards out from the Longhorns net and fired a shot over the keeper just under the crossbar for a 1-0 lead.
Sixteen minutes later the Titans struck again as Jacob Bernholtz rose up in traffic to head home a corner from Ace Gaither and the Titans carried a 2-0 lead into halftime.
The second half was an entirely different beast though as the Longhorns stepped up their pace with heavy 50-50 challenges and looking to send long passes over the top for success. The backline of Otto Billingsley, Garmhausen, Finn Ramsey and Gaither chased down several long passes and goalie Joseph Suddereth came off his line to clear the ball from harm’s way, but the constant attack wore on the Titans.
Basalt got their first break 13 minutes into the second half as pressure at midfield forced a Titan turnover and a Basalt midfielder punched his shot in from 35 yards out.
Crested Butte followed with a couple of scoring chances but struggled to find the back of the net and Basalt struck again in the 30th minute of the second half. Suddereth came off his line to challenge a through ball and stopped the first look, but a Basalt player followed the play and tucked home the rebound to tie the game 2-2.
The Longhorns tacked on a third goal not long after that and then sealed the deal in the final five minutes with a fourth goal to hand Crested Butte the 4-2 loss.
“We just couldn’t connect the midfield with the forwards successfully,” says Piccaro. “We were in their half a lot while they were just booting it and running on to it.”
The Titans returned to Rainbow Field on Saturday, August 20 to face Alamosa expecting another tough challenge. Instead, they found a young opponent looking to still find their game as the Titans scored in the first minute of the game and continued to pour it on for the 10-0 win. Bernholtz recorded a hat trick and Kai Greene netted two goals while Gaither, Blue Gardner, Ben Barney, Garmhausen and Jamis Matlock each scored one goal. Matlock tallied three assists as well in the Titans’ effort.
“I was expecting a stronger team from Alamosa,” says Piccaro. “In past years they put up a defensive wall that was always hard for us to penetrate. The game did give a lot of our subs and some of the JV players some experience in the varsity arena.”
The Titans return to play next week as they host formidable 3A program Salida on Tuesday, August 30, kick off is at 4 p.m.
“We still need to work on conditioning, first touches and to get back on defense quicker and that goes hand-in-hand with conditioning,” says Piccaro.
