The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We just weren’t consistent”
[ by Than Acuff ]
When the Crested Butte Titans girls basketball team headed to Grand Junction for a tournament this time last year, they suffered a lopsided loss to Plateau Valley to open the weekend and fell the next day to Caprock Academy. This time around the Titans brought a different game to the court to open the tournament against Plateau Valley edging out a 39-33 win but struggled to find that same magic the next day falling to Caprock 39-35.
Despite Plateau Valley’s attempt to disrupt Crested Butte’s flow, the Titans battled back and forth with Plateau Valley through the first two quarters and were down just 17-15 at the half. Coach Amanda Reynolds then took the halftime break to switch a few things and the Titans opened the second half on fire.
“We still can’t change things on the fly, but we made some adjustments at halftime and they picked them up pretty quickly,” says Reynolds. “They implemented those changes and saw the fruits of their labor.”
Crested Butte went on to outscore Plateau Valley 11-1 in the third quarter and dropped in an additional 13 points in the fourth quarter to seal the 39-33 win. Blakely Reynolds tallied 11 points, 10 rebounds and four steal in the win, Molly Miller knocked down 10 points and additional scoring came from a variety of sources.
“That game shows we’re competing as a solid unit,” says Amanda. “We have four new varsity players that are really impacting our game.”
The Titans are still developing though and that showed in their game Saturday, December 10 against Caprock Academy. After a slow start to the game, Crested Butte outscored Caprock 16-9 in the second quarter to take a 20-18 lead into halftime. Caprock came out of the break to retake the lead in the third quarter and held on through the fourth to hand the Titans a 39-35 loss. Blakeley led all scorers with 25 points, Lexi Pickering tacked on six points and Mara Pennie pulled down 11 rebounds.
“We did a decent job of beating ourselves in that game,” says Amanda. “We’re moving the ball, running the offense better and beginning to do what good teams do, shots just weren’t falling. We just weren’t consistent.”
Crested Butte returned home to host the Lake City Fourteeners on Tuesday, December 13 and rolled to a 57-24 win. The Titans have two more games before the break in Gunnison on Friday, December 16 at 4:30 p.m. and then again in Gunnison on Saturday, December 17 at 11 a.m.
“There are a lot of layers of things that just aren’t falling into place for us, but I’d rather see that now early in the season,” says Amanda. “It’s going to take some time for all of us to click but I know they’ll get it.”
