The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I was very pleased with how we played defensively”
By Than Acuff
The Crested Butte Titans girls’ basketball team headed into the holiday break on a high note with a 45-20 win over the Lake City Fourteeners in Lake City on Tuesday, December 19. It was their second win in a row.
They were fresh off a busy weekend falling to Montezuma-Cortez and taking down the Telluride Miners three days prior. It was during the Montezuma-Cortez game that the Titans slow start really bit them in the end, while they used the Telluride game to continue working on a new defense. Coach Anna Bressnick was looking to her team to remedy the former issue and continue their work on the latter one.
“We start a little slow and we’re working on that, and we put in a new zone D and were looking to play that the entire game,” says Bressnick. “Work on defense in game time situations.”
They hit one of those two goals as their defense caused fits for the Fourteeners, but they still came out slow and managed just a slim 9-6 lead by the end of the first quarter. It also didn’t help that the Titans struggled with shooting early on and throughout the entire game.
“We had a really off shooting night,” says Bressnick.
The Titans’ defense did eventually pace the team to a much better second quarter. And while shooting woes continued, they managed to generate points off turnovers to build a sizeable lead by halftime.
“I was very pleased with how we played defensively,” says Bressnick. “We settled down and locked in and were forcing Lake City to make bad passes.”
The Titans remained in their 1-3-1 zone defense in the third quarter and Bressnick turned to her bench to continue building varsity experience for her young team. The Titans continued scoring off their defensive effort in the third quarter and while Lake City’s top player still found some success, Crested Butte’s defense continued to handcuff the team as a whole.
“We were moving the ball really well on offense and not really giving them any good looks on defense,” says Bressnick.
The Titans continued their way through the fourth quarter to cruise to a 45-20 win.
“I’m pleased with scoring 45 points the way we were shooting,” says Bressnick. “That’s promising when we get into tougher games.”
Bressnick still has concerns about her team’s penchant for slow starts though.
“We will keep working on that,” says Bressnick. “Coming out with intensity. We won’t be able to get away with that moving forward.”
With the holiday break in full swing, Bressnick will use the time to get the gym open for players to practice shooting and dig deep into game film of their opponents so she’s ready to hit the floor running when they get back to workouts the second week of January.
“Pull up some tape so we can come into the week of practices with a solid game plan,” says Bressnick.
The Titans return to play on Thursday, January 11 when they hit the road to play Creede and then have a three-game home stretch starting on January 16.
