GHS falls to Basalt, 47-7

The Gunnison High School football dropped their second straight game, losing at Basalt on Friday, Sept. 11.

The Cowboys traveled to Basalt to take on the Longhorns for their fourth game of the season. Coming into the game, both teams were sitting at 2-1. Only seven spots separated the two teams in the rankings. 

Basalt got the best of Gunnison though, defeating the Cowboys 47-7. The Longhorns were propelled by a dominant first half, in which they outscored the Cowboys 41-0.

“We didn't come off of the jump right away,” said head coach Chase Starman. “Basalt did a great job of just firing out the ball from the beginning, and he kind of punched us in the mouth from the get-go, and it was hard for us to regain our momentum after that.”

The Longhorns scored 28 points in the first quarter and 13 in the second. Despite being down big at the half, Starman’s team played hard the entire game and ended up outscoring the Longhorns 7-6 in the second half.

“The one thing that I will say, though, is the boys never quit,” said Starman. “When you're in a game like that, you got every excuse in the world to just fall over and be like, yeah, whatever, let's ride this out, let's just go home. But they played with heart the entire game.”

Quarterback Asher Woytek finished the game 4-for-12 for 24 yards and four interceptions. Jorge Perez led the team with 19 carries for 56 yards, but he also lost a fumble. J Stoeber scored the Cowboys lone touchdown on a 15-yard run. 

Joan Martinez led the team with eight total tackles and Simeon Jauregui and Jacob Frey each had a sack.

Turnovers were the Cowboys kryptonite in the game. The boys finished with five, which made it very hard for the Cowboys to climb back into the game.

Up next, the Cowboys will be back home for the first of two straight games at home. They’ll host the Aspen Skiers on Friday, Sept. 18, with kickoff set for 7 p.m. The Skiers are 1-2 and ranked No. 17 in 2A.

Ahead of next week, Starman wants the boys to have energy and make the most of the opportunity to bounce back against the Skiers. 

“I think our main takeaway for this week, as I told the boys, we need energy all week,” said Starman. “We got to have energy on Monday. We got to have energy on Tuesday, on Wednesday, and on Thursday, because when they have energy, they have a hell of a time.

They have fun. They're hooting and hollering, they're executing, and they're making football fun again.”