The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Can’t beat the injury bug
By Than Acuff
Just when things were looking up for the Crested Butte Titans hockey team with players returning to action and extra practices on tap for additional development, the Titans lost a starting captain and another player and struggled falling to Battle Mountain and Durango over the weekend.
Crested Butte was looking to turn momentum around just before the school break when they hosted the Battle Mountain Huskies on Friday, December 20. With alumni in the house and a couple more players back from injuries, the Titans set the tone at the start of the first period.
Crested Butte threatened early and often starting with Ethan Suazo when he broke free to the Battle Mountain net only to be denied. Minutes later the Titans were on the powerplay and created a couple more chances and the effort Suazo and Max Dukeman continued to show promise on offense while the Titans defense and goalie Ryder Church held off the Huskies attack.
Mark Williams then got another chance for the Titans in close, but the Battle Mountain goalie was on point to make the save and the Titans soon found themselves having to kill back-to-back penalties.
Crested Butte’s penalty kill not only shut down the Huskies’ powerplay but created a couple shorthanded scoring chances only to be turned away and the teams closed the first period locked in a 0-0 tie.
“It was fantastic,” says assistant coach Shane McGuinness. “We had a ton of energy, everything was going great. We just ran into a hot goaltender.”
Things were working in Crested Butte’s favor through the second period as they started it with a five-minute powerplay and subsequent powerplays later in the period, but they couldn’t crack the seal on the Battle Mountain net.
Things then took a turn for the worst in the final four minutes of the second period as Battle Mountain scored two shorthanded goals, one of which came playing two men down.
“We had a ton of chances on the powerplays and I really think if we’d scored one, we would have piled more up,” says McGuinness.
The Huskies continued to push the pace at the start of the third period and while the Titans remained tough through the first half of the period, they grew tired having played so many minutes of the game either on the powerplay or killing penalties.
Battle Mountain would seize on the tired legs of the Titans to score four more goals and close the game with a 6-0 win. Church finished the game with 30 saves and the Titans suffered two more blows to their roster losing one to an ejection and another to a concussion.
The team then boarded the bus early Saturday morning to face the Durango Demons and injuries, a travel snafu and an even shorter bench left them further depleted for the game. Durango jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first period and tacked on four more over the next two periods for an 8-1 win. Marshall Spann assisted Luke Hartigan on the Titans’ goal and Shane Mensing and Gustav DesAuliners shared the job in net for the Titans.
“Our confidence just wasn’t there the first couple of minutes and they got an early goal,” says McGuinness. “A better first period and it’s a different game. Durango was a good team. It was still a good opportunity for a lot of our guys deeper on the bench to get a lot of ice time and see some action against a really good team.”
The Titans now have a break to hopefully rest and recover before they return to action in the new year when they host Summit on Friday, January 3 at 7 p.m. in Gunnison. They remain at home Saturday to face Summit again at 3:30 p.m.
“We’ll just try to get healthy over the break,” says McGuinness. “We have some ice time to focus a lot on skill work and then get back into the normal routine. A majority of our injured players should be back after the break.”
