Titans boys basketball chalks up two more wins as season rolls along

“We have more than one player playing at a really high level”

By Than Acuff 

After back-to-back defeats including a heartbreaking late game loss, the Crested Butte Titans boys basketball team bounced back and returned to their winning ways taking down the Ridgway Demons and the Del Norte Tigers. Their record now stands at 5-1 in league play and 12-4 overall.

They got back on track in Ridgway as they cruised to a 76-44 win over the Demons on Tuesday, February 6. The Demons are struggling this season, so Titans coach Hannes Gehring was expecting to come away with a positive result. Nevertheless, he still wanted a quality showing from his team.

“We had a four-pass rule,” says Gehring. “Our focus was ball movement and taking good shots.”

One thing that escaped the Titans in the first quarter was defense as the Demons scored 21 points in the first quarter and were down just three points heading into the second quarter.

“Our defense wasn’t exactly what we wanted it to be,” says Gehring.

Crested Butte tightened the screws defensively and continued to get the ball inside to Weston Miller to start pulling away in the second quarter.

“The boys saw we had an advantage there with Weston,” says Gehring. “The team has really bought into getting Weston touches.”

The Titans continued to pour it on in the second half while holding the Demon offense in check. After giving up 21 points in the first quarter, Crested Butte held Ridgway to 23 points the rest of the game to roll to a 76-44 win. Miller led all scorers with 29 points, pulled down 13 rebounds and had four assists. Riley Davis scored 19 and grabbed eight boards while Adin Kurak and Luke Jennings each scored 10 points.

Crested Butte returned home to host the Del Norte Tigers on Friday, February 9 and celebrated their three seniors— Miller, Davis and Porter Donohue—with Senior Night.

The Titans traded buckets with Del Norte in the first quarter building a slight three-point lead and then started to pull away in the second quarter outscoring Del Norte 11-3. Davis knocked down six points and Donohue hit a three-pointer from deep in the corner to pace Crested Butte to a 25-14 lead at halftime.

A defensive move by the coaching staff during halftime then opened the doors even wider for Crested Butte in the third quarter.

“We hadn’t used many of our defenses in the first half, so we decided to turn it up and surprise them in the second half,” says Gehring. “We thought if we can get steals and easy buckets of those, that can be back breaking.”

It turned out it was as the Titans put up 27 points in the third quarter while holding Del Norte to eight. Four different Titans were in on the scoring outburst as Davis and Miller proved potent from inside the paint while Kurak and Donohue found success on the perimeter.

“We have more than one player playing at a really high level,” says Gehring.

The Titans continued to get points from a variety of players down the stretch as they put the finishing touches on the 64-36 Senior Night win. Four Titans scored in double digits on the night.

“The energy and effort the kids were playing with on defense was the best I’ve seen all year,” says Gehring. 

The Titans have three more games this week to finish out the regular season including playing at home against South Park on Saturday, February 17, tipoff is at 4 p.m.

“It will be fun to finish with a league game at home,” says Gehring.