{"id":2445841,"date":"2019-06-29T21:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T03:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-rugby-crushes-breckenridge-in-home-opener\/"},"modified":"2019-06-29T21:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T03:20:00","slug":"aspen-rugby-crushes-breckenridge-in-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-rugby-crushes-breckenridge-in-home-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen rugby crushes Breckenridge in home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Gentlemen of Aspen Rugby Club hosts Breckenridge on Saturday, June 29, 2019, at Rio Grande Park in Aspen. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Expectations were that the Gentlemen of Aspen Rugby Club would be able to make easy work of a short-handed Breckenridge side on Saturday. Reality played out exactly that way, with the Gents winning 73-14 at Rio Grande Park in the home opener for Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really positive performance today,\u201d coach Ben Mitchell said. \u201cThe first half, in particular, we scored 40 unanswered points and whenever you do that in a rugby game you know you\u2019re doing something right.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Mitchell\u2019s first season coaching the Gents, so Saturday\u2019s game against Breck happened to be his Aspen debut, as well. Currently a member of the Austin Elite Rugby club in Major League Rugby, Mitchell is a former Gent himself and likes where the team sits as it heads into July.<\/p>\n

An outmatched Breck side was nothing more than a tune-up for what lies ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally pleased with the overall performance,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe seem to be improving each week, which is important. As we move on through the season there will be tougher tests, and it\u2019s important we keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen is 4-0 after Saturday\u2019s match. The Gents also have wins over the Misfits, Steamboat Springs and Glenwood Springs, with their game up in Steamboat a few weeks ago being the closest. The Breck game was arguably their most complete to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we really ran the system today,\u201d said Chris Campbell, a first-year Gent from St. Louis who was named the man of the match against Breck. \u201cThe boys were really pushing hard on offense and defense, both sides of the ball. We were just playing as a unit and it was all about our intensity today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next weekend, Campbell will get his first taste of the Aspen-Vail rivalry, something he admitted to not knowing much about. True rivals in just about everything, it\u2019ll be especially evident on the pitch Saturday when Vail comes to town for a 1 p.m. game.<\/p>\n

Vail had an impressive summer a year ago, having won the annual Ski Town tournament in Aspen last year, while sweeping the Gents. The Gents will look to return the favor Saturday in one of the biggest matches of the season for either side.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a bit of an extra buzz for the Vail week,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe definitely want to get one up on them. We lost twice to them last year and we want to get the wins back against Vail.\u201d<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gentlemen of Aspen Rugby Club hosts Breckenridge on Saturday, June 29, 2019, at Rio Grande Park in Aspen. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times Expectations were that the Gentlemen of Aspen Rugby Club would be able to make easy work of a short-handed Breckenridge side on Saturday. Reality played out exactly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 12:44:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}