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Basalt football falls at Gunnison

Nate Peterson

Maybe it was the long bus ride. Maybe it was the cold, whistling wind. Maybe it was both.What’s certain is this: Basalt blew its chance at knocking off 2A Western-Slope-leading Gunnison Friday night with a whole heap of unnecessary penalties.”I think we’re a much better team than the record shows right now,” said Longhorns coach Forrest Grosh after his team dropped to 1-3 overall following a 41-14 loss to the Cowboys. “We’ve gone up against some good teams and we’ve just come up short. We’ve shown signs of brilliance, but then someone takes a play off and we hurt ourselves.”On its opening drive, Basalt drove down inside Gunnison’s 30-yard line, only to kill its own momentum with a string of penalties. Basalt also wasted a good opportunity right at the end of the half, after driving down inside the Cowboys’ 20. Two throws into the end zone went for nothing, leaving the Longhorns down 27-7 at the break.Basalt’s lone touchdown in the first half came when senior quarterback Tucker Hinchliffe scrambled away from a pack of Cowboys defenders near midfield and ended up in the end zone. At the start of the second half, Basalt junior Andy Mayer scooped up a Cowboys’ fumble and rumbled to the end zone to pull Basalt within two scores. The momentum didn’t last. The Cowboys started the fourth quarter with the ball and only need three plays to cover 70 yards to take a three-touchdown lead. Basalt then surrendered one more touchdown.”We just kind of folded,” Grosh said. “We need to be able and step up and handle adversity.”The heap of penalties also didn’t sit well with the Longhorns’ head coach.”Just a bunch of ticky-tack calls,” Grosh said. “There were a lot of things that were away from the ball. A lot of stuff that had nothing to do with the play, but that the refs will call. We’ve got to clean up our act. … These first four games have shown us that we don’t have everything together and we just need to work harder and get better. We need to clean up the small mistakes and play every play for 48 minutes.”Basalt encountered snow and rain on the long drive down, but the sky cleared up before the game. Both teams had to contend with a biting wind that picked up at certain points throughout the night.Along with Mayer and Hinchliffe, Grosh singled out the play of Wylie Chenoweth at linebacker and tight end Cody Kosinski.Basalt (1-1 in league) travels to Cedaredge Friday for a 7 p.m. game.Nate Peterson’s e-mail address is npeterson@aspentimes.com