The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Fall to Simla, scorch Soroco
By Than Acuff
Travel is all part of the game when it comes to winter high school sports and the Crested Butte Titans boys basketball team made one of their bigger trips of the season when they headed east of Colorado Springs to a basketball tournament at Simla High School on Friday and Saturday, December 15–16.
They opened the tournament against host Simla and got some insight into what a high school basketball tradition is like. Simla is currently ranked number one in the state and has a legacy as a perennial powerhouse.
“We knew full well the challenge we had ahead of us,” says coach Hannes Gehring. “We knew we had to be ready to do most things right and minimize mistakes.”
Unfortunately, playing on Simla’s home court in front of a raucous crowd after a five-hour bus ride, the Titans were overwhelmed. While aware of Simla’s game plan, Crested Butte struggled to execute proficiently through their press and Simla built a 25-6 lead by the end of the first quarter.
“We just kept finding ourselves in tough positions, making the same mistakes,” says Gehring.
The coaches made some adjustments, and the Titans took to them in the second quarter outscoring Simla 12-7, but still struggled to make any serious headway.
“When we did break their press, we weren’t capitalizing on our opportunities,” says Gehring. “We were making uncharacteristic mental errors.”
Simla turned it back up in the third quarter to rebuild their lead, but the Titans never gave up and battled their way to the end despite playing most of the game down by double digits.
“It’s easy to lay down when you’re down 19 points at the end of the first quarter but the kids didn’t let that happen,” says Gehring. “I was really proud that they didn’t stop fighting.”
The Titans licked their wounds and returned to the Simla gym on Saturday to face Soroco. Soroco is the opposite of the spectrum from Simla with a small program that struggles with no consistent JV program in place to feed the varsity program.
“It was one of those games where we knew we had an advantage,” says Gehring.
As a result, Gehring used the game as four quarters of a teachable moment. The Titans have struggled from the three-point line so far this season so Gehring challenged his team to work on aspects of the game where they can see success.
“We had a four-pass rule on offense,” says Gehring. “I wanted them to focus on working the ball around and getting it inside.”
To their credit, the Titans followed the strategy and didn’t shoot a single three-pointer and still managed to score 56 points in the first half and cruised to a 78-19 win. Adin Kurak led the team with 22 points, Riley Davis scored 20, Weston Miller 18 and Eli Hulm dropped in 10 points.
“Hopefully it was eye-opening for the kids,” says Gehring. “Having them see that scoring doesn’t have to come from the three-point line and lean into what we do well.”
The Titans now enter a massive break over the holidays and don’t have their next game until January 13 when they face Telluride on the road.
“We’re just having a really nice build right now,” says Gehring. “And when we come back from the break we have a good chunk of time to continue to progress.”
