The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I don’t think anybody thought we weren’t going to pull it out”
By Than Acuff
Following a week of focused workouts to undo the tough loss to North Fork the week before, the Crested Butte Titans edged out a 60-57 win over Caprock Academy on Saturday, January 18.
The team had prepared for the game accordingly all week as head coach Mike Bacani had the starting five line up for an intrasquad scrimmage every day of workouts with three minutes on the clock focused on closing the game out. In the end, that prep appeared to pay off.
“When it came to executing at the end of the game, we were focused,” says Bacani.
The Titans took the floor with their two top scorers on the bench, one for the entirety of the game and another for the first part of the game. The two teams traded baskets, but Caprock switched to a press and after a couple stumbles breaking the press, Bacani called a timeout to calm the team down. Adin Kurak then joined the team out on the floor and the Titans closed the first quarter with 15-6 run. Eli Hulm kicked it off with a three-pointer, Kurak followed with a three-point play and a three-pointer and both Hulm and Kurak came up with shot blocks.
Caprock continued to press but the Titans’ pace and intensity broke it to set up Owen Pugh for three baskets in a row to build a 17-9 lead by the close of the first quarter.
“I told the team to play hard, play fast and play angry and they did,” says Bacani. “Owen had 23 points and 12 rebounds in the JV game and carried that over into the varsity game and gave us a cushion.”
Five points from Kurak to open the second quarter had the Titans up 22-11 but Caprock’s success on the offensive boards and a couple three-pointers had them chipping away at the Titans’ lead before things completely unraveled for the Titans. Tyus Fischer came on to knock down a couple big three-pointers and Pugh came through again with another basket in the final minute. Caprock closed the half scoring at the buzzer and were down just four points heading into halftime.
Caprock saw some success breaking the Titans’ zone press in the second quarter, so Bacani switched gears to a man press in the second half which disrupted Caprock. Kurak scored another five points to start off the second half to help rebuild a seven-point lead, but they couldn’t put Caprock away. Caprock capitalized on some Titan miscues and their effective work on the boards exacerbated by the loss of Titans clutch rebounder Luke Jennings to foul trouble, allowed them to pull back into the game tying it 42-42 by the end of the third quarter.
“We’re still not where we need to be rebounding defensively,” says Bacani.
Kurak and Fischer provided key baskets for the Titans to preserve the Titans’ slim lead midway through the fourth quarter, but Caprock eventually climbed ahead 54-53 with a little over two minutes left to play. Fortunately, another Titan player came through as Ronan Conroy scored in the paint to put the Titans back on top and Kurak ran coast-to-coast for another lay up before Caprock called a timeout with 49 seconds left and down three points.
They came out of the break looking to press again and, once again, the Titans broke it to set up Pugh for a layup. Caprock hit a three-pointer to pull within two of the Titans, but Bacani called back-to-back timeouts down the stretch to make sure the team knew what to do and Kurak hit one last free throw to ice the 60-57 win. Kurak led the team with 31 points, Pugh scored 10 and Fischer added in eight.
“I don’t think anybody thought we weren’t going to pull it out,” says Bacani. “We got a win that maybe we don’t get two weeks ago.”
The Titans return to league play this week as they face Center on the road on Friday, January 24 and then host Trinidad on Saturday, January 25, tipoff for the varsity is at 1 p.m.
Meanwhile, Bacani will continue to work on getting the team to bring a more complete game to the floor.
“We haven’t struck that balance where we have lockdown defense and a good offense,” says Bacani. “It’s great to score 60 points but you can’t give up 57.”
