Boys’ basketball rebounds with win over Lake County

“It was satisfying to see the kids bounce back without a practice”

By Than Acuff

To say the Gunnison Cowboys were amped up for the rematch with the Crested Butte Titans in Crested Butte on Wednesday, February 11 would be an understatement. Just two weeks before, the Titans had gone to Gunnison and handed them a 58-34 loss. This time around, the Cowboys returned the favor to hand the Titans a 69-40 loss.

Gunnison jumped out to a 5-0 lead before Titans’ coach Mike Bacani called a timeout to stem the stampede and Crested Butte responded accordingly as points from Owen Pugh, Tyus Fisher and Blake Bacani had the game tied up midway through the first quarter. But Gunnison kept on pushing and found success inside and out to pull ahead 17-11 by the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter was similar, but the Titans got a massive boost four minutes in when Isaac Jennings played one versus three defense to deny a Gunnison basket and the Titans turned the ball up court to set up Pugh for a layup pulling back to within two. Gunnison called a timeout to stem the Titans’ tide and then closed the first half with a 6-2 run for a 26-20 lead.

“I felt like we were holding on and fighting uphill the entire first half,” says Mike.

Gunnison’s shooters remained hot in the second half, they would finish the game seven-for-eight from three-point range, and the uphill fight grew wearisome for the Titans. Gunnison outscored the Titans 23-7 in the third quarter to put the game out of reach eventually rolling to the big win. Blake led the team with 17 points and six steals while Pugh dropped in nine points and had four steals.

“Clearly Gunnison looked faster and more engaged than us,” says Mike. “Our defense was not good at all, unrecognizable, and Gunnison was getting easy baskets down low and on fire from the three-point line. That just destroyed us.”

The Titans had to lick their wounds and regroup for another game the next day when they hosted Lake County with only film to prepare with.

“We spent the time before the game going over film and diagnosed what we did wrong against Gunnison and corrected it as best we could,” explains Mike.

The Titans responded at both ends of the court as they held Lake County to nine points in the first quarter while putting up 18. John Mitchell and Pugh opened the scoring with back-to-back three-pointers, Blake added in a three of his own and Jennings drove the lane for a layup in the final second of the first quarter for an 18-9 Titans’ lead.

“Offensively I asked out guards to attack their zone to move it and that opened up our three-pointers,” says Mike.

Lake County made a run at Crested Butte to pull within five points midway through the second quarter, but Mike called a timeout, refocused the team and they closed the first half with a 9-0 run, including another three-pointer from Blake and buckets from Mitchell and Pugh, to pull ahead 32-16 by halftime.

“We started to revert back to how we played defense against Gunnison and Lake County switched from zone to man defense, so I wanted to make sure we were in the right spots and on the same page,” says Mike.

The Titans held Lake County at arm’s length throughout the second half with Fisher finding success inside and out, Pugh knocking down mid-range jumpers and Blake attacking from the wing as Crested Butte sealed their 51-39 win. Blake and Pugh led the Titans with 13 points each, Pugh pulled down four rebounds, the Titans committed their fewest turnovers of the season, and their defense held Lake County to their second lowest point output of the season.

“It was satisfying to see the kids bounce back without a practice,” says Mike.

The Titans close the regular season at home with Sargent on Friday, February 20 at 7 p.m. and then South Park on Saturday at 1 p.m. The following week the Titans play in the end of the year league tournament looking to get a spot in the 2A state tournament.

“We definitely need to win those to have a good shot at playing in the postseason,” says Mike. “Right now, we’re on the bubble.”