Titan girls’ basketball struggles on the road

Short bench struggles

By Than Acuff

While the wins are few and far between, the Crested Butte girls’ basketball team keeps plugging away with games getting harder, opponents are tougher and varsity Titans players are missing games due to vacation during the current February Break.

The Titans headed to Gunnison on Wednesday, February 12 to face a senior heavy Cowboys squad that was 4-1 on their home court going into the game and had handed the Titans a 54-17 loss earlier in the season on Crested Butte’s home court.

Any chance at pulling off an upset was soon dashed as Gunnison jumped out to a 15-2 lead in the first quarter. Crested Butte did find their scoring touch to put up 10 points in the second quarter with seven coming from Molly Miller, but they still couldn’t stop the Cowboys’ offense and were down 31-12 at halftime. Gunnison then outscored the Titans 27-5 in the second half to hand Crested Butte a 58-17 loss. Miller led the team with 12 points.

“We tried to make some adjustments and changed up the defense, but it didn’t totally help,” says coach Anna Bressnick. “The theme of that game was the story of our season. We need to get everybody contributing.”

The Titans hoped to get their final home game of the season on Friday, February 14 when they were set to host Lake County, a team they could see some success against with a full squad available. Unfortunately, the game was postponed due to the weather and the Titans returned to the road on Saturday, February 15 to head to Cotopaxi.

The Cotopaxi Pirates are another tough opponent with the entire team returning from last year. Add in the fact that it was the Pirates’ Senior Night and the Titans were down several players for the game leaving Bressnick to dig deep into the bench for the game and it was set up for a tough evening of hoops.

“We did have four varsity players, but we then had several players that hadn’t seen a minute of varsity basketball,” says Bressnick. “I told the team let’s just go play basketball and we had a fire in us.”

While the energy and effort were there for the Titans, they did have a six-foot Cotopaxi player in the paint they had to contend with who thwarted the Titans offense.

“We always look to drive to the hoop and their post player gave us some fits,” says Bressnick.

The Pirates did build a 10-5 lead in the first quarter and were up 18-11 at halftime but the Titans never handed it over to them and kept on battling. Crested Butte matched the Pirates point for point in the third quarter to remain in reach with one quarter left to play. The Pirates then turned it up a notch to finish the game off outscoring the Titans 13-5 in the fourth quarter for the 40-25 win. Miller scored 13 points with five other Titans scoring as well.

“We were right in there down just seven points at the end of the third quarter,” says Bressnick. “I was proud of them. Everybody was able to step in and do their part.”

The Titans now have Lake County, Sargent and South Park on the road this week to finish out the season with players missing some or all of those games. Nevertheless, Bressnick is looking for a win against Lake County while Sargent and South Park will be tough no matter who the Titans have suiting up for those games.

“Everybody’s on vacation but we’re gonna try and steal a win against Lake County,” says Bressnick. “We’re shorthanded but we’ll be tough, we’ll keep working on the craft and playing together as a team.”