The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Take third place
Several questions swirled through the head of Lady Titans basketball coach MaryMike Haley heading into a tournament last weekend.
First of all, who are these teams?
Secondly, can we play a half court game?
Third, where are we?
The Lady Titans opened the regular season with a tournament at Hanover High School outside of Colorado Springs facing a cluster of never-before-seen teams from the Colorado Springs area.
Yet, while the teams were relative unknowns to Crested Butte, Crested Butte was no mystery to them. The Lady Titans were ranked seventh in the Rocky Mountain News pre-season poll, attracting the attention of their opponents.
That fact became clear in Crested Butte’s first game of the weekend against Miami-Yoder High School on Thursday, December 4.
Miami-Yoder opened the game playing a box-in-one defense in an effort to slow down Lady Titans’ leading scorer senior Emma Vosburg.
“They did their homework,” says Haley.
Initially, Vosburg struggled with the pressure but not for long, as she would go on to score 22 points leading the Lady Titans to a 41-35 win.
Furthermore, the Lady Titans managed to work on a new half court offense with senior Jessie Frame, sophomore Shannon Holleran and freshman Sydney Jernigan rotating through the post position.
“We did a good job of using the post a little more,” says Haley. “It was good to test that out.”
The Lady Titans returned to the court Friday, December 5 to face Fountain Valley High School. Fountain Valley posed the toughest test of the weekend for the Lady Titans, with five returning seniors on the floor.
Crested Butte battled even with Fountain Valley through the first half and the Lady Titans entered halftime down two points.
After a sluggish opening to the third quarter, the Lady Titans fell behind but clawed back into the game midway through the third quarter, but a late surge by Fountain Valley gave them a five-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Fountain Valley built on their lead through the final quarter to emerge with a 56-39 win.
The Lady Titans loss set up a third and final game of the weekend against a scrappy and determined team from Karval High School on Saturday, December 6.
What Karval may have lacked in skills, they more than made up for with effort, refusing to give in to the Lady Titans.
“We’d start to pull away and they kept coming back,” says Haley. “They were tenacious and just kept fighting.”
Crested Butte took a slim 24-22 lead into halftime and managed to hold off random surges from Karval the rest of the game to close with a 60-42 win.
Vosburg led all scorers with 32 points, followed by Frame, who dropped in 10 points, and Loyed with nine points.
In the end Haley was pleased with what she saw from her team in their first games of the season. In years past, the Lady Titans were more of a two-player team. This year, Haley is seeing contributions from everyone.
“We’ve got some things to work on, but nothing too overwhelming,” says Haley. “It was a great weekend to work out the kinks and see what we’ve got. They really worked well as a team and the freshmen who got in have been playing great basketball.”
The Lady Titans will start league play on the road against Centennial on Friday, December 12.
