Sitting 13th in CHSAA's Class 2A Girls' Soccer RPI index, and hoping for a miracle just before the Association's "Selection Sunday," Crested Butte Community School left nothing to chance against Ignacio.
Bringing their entire arsenal of players to Montrose High School on Saturday, May 6, the Titans put their first shot off sophomore goalkeeper Lanie Webb's far post. Crested Butte then broke the ice with senior Kiara Cottrell's 10th-minute goal, built up a four-goal lead with sophomore Tess Fenerty's marker in the 19th, and then doubled it after intermission to win easily 8-0, ending the Bobcats' season.
Cottrell finished with two scores, and CBCS also got goals from sophomore Murphy Sloan, freshman Maya Chandler, freshman Avery Bernholtz, sophomore Rachael Potoker and junior Kali Pankey. They later ended their season how they'd started it back in March: A shutout loss to the 4A Montrose JV.
Concluding their first official CHSAA-sanctioned season, the Titans finished 6-10-1 overall, 6-7-0 against the full 3A/2A Intermountain League, and 5-4-0 versus 2A members.
Slowed by the effects of an unusually warm afternoon at Down Valley Park in Placerville and lengthy 7-0 loss to Telluride the previous day, Ignacio finished up a defensively-improved campaign with respective 0-14, 0-14, and 0-10 marks.
Playing through a broken left middle finger, senior Bailey Wyatt had collected an impressive 20 saves defending the net against the State Tournament-bound Telluride Miners. Wyatt was utilized as a field player for her final match (joining classmates Ryley Webb and Tori Archuleta) for the Red-and-White against Crested Butte. Lanie Webb, no stranger to injury herself this spring, would have to gut out one more outing between the pipes.
And with another key cog, Chamisa Edd, benched due to an ankle wracked within the final 30 seconds of the loss to THS, and seniors Rachel Cooper and Sharmaine Price unavailable, IHS' chances of replicating the quality of an earlier 2-0 loss against a scaled-down CBCS roster were slim at best.
Still, with a young roster and sizable senior-to-be class, as well as the enthusiastic coaching staff of Coach Daniel Sanchez and assistants Savannah Davis and Alisha Gullion, Ignacio will be eager to resume the ongoing quest for victory in 2018.
"It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got this experience to play my senior year," Cooper had said, following the Bobcats' Senior Day home loss to Alamosa on April 29. "I think we have really pushed, like, at getting first to the ball, and I think the girls have a lot more confidence in themselves getting first-to, so we can get it down the field. We just don't know how to finish; we don't really know what it's like down on the goal end."
"We just gave it our all and fought as hard as we could," summarized Wyatt.
"We did accomplish what we wanted to.scored a goal," Sanchez had said, referring to Ryley Webb's strike in a 3-1 road loss at Del Norte on April 27. "So I'm really happy with what we've got. We'd like to win.going to try until the last second!"
