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Football: Basalt heads to undefeated Battle Mountain

Last week, the Basalt High School football team lost 42-7 at mighty Delta, dropping the Longhorns to 1-2 on the season.

However, if you ask Basalt coach Carl Frerichs, the score doesn’t do justice to the sort of effort the players put in.

“I’m super proud of how the kids stood up to Delta. We had over 300 yards of offense,” Frerichs said. “We never backed down, and the kids kept fighting. We had some opportunities to do some better things in that game.”



Basalt opened the season with a 48-34 loss at home to Rifle, another Western Slope powerhouse, before beating Grand Valley 49-7 in its second game. The schedule doesn’t get much easier this week, with the Longhorns going on the road for the third consecutive time to face Battle Mountain at 7 p.m. today in Edwards.

Battle Mountain is 3-0 with its wins coming against Steamboat Springs (24-7), Roaring Fork (13-7) and Coal Ridge (40-16), all league opponents for Basalt. The Huskies, who spent the past two seasons in the Class 2A Western Slope league, moved to 3A this season.




Last season, Basalt beat Battle Mountain, 20-10.

“It’s definitely a good indicator of where we are in our league,” Frerichs said of the match up with Battle Mountain. “Their defense is their strength. In their wins, they have really shut down the other opponent’s offense. They are a pretty balanced offense. We are going to need to be a lot better against the pass than we were against Delta.”

The Longhorns will be without senior running back and linebacker Ian Lumsden — he leads the team with 263 rushing yards — but Frerichs has been happy with the effort in practice this week and believes the team is in a good spot.

“Any time you don’t have an all-conference player playing, we really need to have our kids step up,” Frerichs said of Lumsden’s absence. “I really think our kids have had a good week of practice and are prepared for Friday night.”

This will be the final non-league game for the Longhorns. Basalt will open 2A Western Slope play at home against Steamboat Springs on Sept. 30.

acolbert@aspentimes.com