CB Titans girls’ soccer setting up for successful season

“Our ability across the group is pretty high”

By Than Acuff

The Crested Butte Titans girls’ soccer team closed out last year 10-5-3, won their league title and made it all the way to the 2A state tournament semifinals before getting knocked out.

This year they hope to take it one step further with four seniors returning in key varsity roles and numerous juniors who gained varsity experience as sophomores last year. Add in the fact that the roster has 45 players total, the biggest roster of any sport in the history of Crested Butte high school sports, and the Titans seem to have plenty to work with.

“It’s a massive positive to have this level of consistency and have players that were on varsity as freshmen and sophomores still playing together,” says head coach Tom Lewis. “It’s a huge chemistry boost for the team and the program overall.”

There is such a thing as too many though, but fortunately that is not the case with the Titans as Lewis has Matt Wilson, Adreinne Edmunds-Weil and Annalise Smith returning to coach and Presley Bennett joining the fray to help keep the players engaged and developing.

In addition, there’s the new field. The past several years the Titans spent a majority of their preseason training in the gym or driving back and forth from Gunnison. This year they can step right out on the field in front of the school to practice.

“Being able to walk out of the school and have players ready and sessions ready has been huge rather than spending time driving to Gunnison and then getting ready,” says Lewis.

Preseason workouts for the team officially started on Monday, February 23 and the training started with a focus on skills through repetitions and learning how to manage that many players. During the second week of preseason, they’ve shifted to focus in on areas of the field with keepers getting repetitions in net, defense working on their elements and fundamentals of play and offense doing the same working on creating scoring opportunities and finishing.

Lewis sees a team unlike any he has had in the past after the initial two weeks with a deep pool of viable varsity players and a returning varsity goalkeeper in net.

“Our ability across the group is pretty high,” says Lewis. “I feel like as players continue to develop, we could have as many as 25 varsity level players for playoffs.”

That plethora of talent will allow them to continue their efforts focused on a possession-based style of play this season but also allows them the opportunity to adjust formations and their style of play on the fly to keep opponents on their heels.

“Soccer is a game of chess,” says Lewis. “Within the two formations we want to play, we feel we have a lot of versatility where players can play in different positions and showcase their creativity within the team during play.”

The Titans have 15 regular season games, including a handful against some of the top 3A and 4A teams in the state, with 10 of those on the road. Lewis sees that as both a positive and a negative. Playing at home does come with nerves so road games tend to be a bit more relaxed in that sense. Conversely, there’s nothing like the home field advantage.

“Playing teams at 9,000 feet is a huge advantage,” says Lewis. “And we have so many players that fatigue will never be an issue.”

The players are developing their goals for the season this week, but the coaches have three in mind that they have shared with the team. They want to make it to the state finals, they want to secure home field throughout the playoffs, and they want to celebrate everything. Whether it’s good grades, birthdays, goalkeeper saves, skiing accomplishments, defensive play, goals, no matter what, the team will celebrate.

“We always want a positive environment, no matter what is happening,” says Lewis.

The Titans start the season on the road this weekend with games against Basalt and Aspen in Grand Junction on Friday and Saturday, March 13-14.

“I’m not sure what they’re going to be like,” says Lewis. “I believe we’re a much better team than we were last year and we will learn a lot in this first weekend.”