{"id":2451866,"date":"2019-12-04T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T05:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-girls-basketball-looks-to-take-more-baby-steps-in-year-2-under-aldridges\/"},"modified":"2019-12-04T22:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T05:48:00","slug":"aspen-girls-basketball-looks-to-take-more-baby-steps-in-year-2-under-aldridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-girls-basketball-looks-to-take-more-baby-steps-in-year-2-under-aldridges\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen girls basketball looks to take more \u2018baby steps\u2019 in Year 2 under Aldridges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Aspen High School girls basketball team practices on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Going 4-15 overall usually isn\u2019t something to get excited about, but for the Aspen High School girls basketball team it was a breath of fresh air. With the husband and wife duo of James and Lindsey Aldridge taking over last winter, the Skiers had their best season since a 10-12 campaign in 2011-12.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the new coaches with James and Lindsey was really good for us and I think they just had different expectations for us last year,\u201d AHS senior Maeve McGuire said. \u201cObviously it wasn\u2019t the dream season, but we did a lot better than the years before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to last season, the Skiers had gone exactly 1-19 overall four straight years. The team\u2019s collective record from the 2012-13 season through the 2017-18 season was a mere 8-114.<\/p>\n

But the 2018-19 crew, led by the Aldridges, began to develop a different mentality. It wasn\u2019t necessarily that of a winning team, but maybe of a team that was tired of losing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to win. \u2026 I\u2019m glad most of us stuck with it throughout,\u201d AHS senior Ella Trane said. \u201cJust got to work on the fundamentals and we can work up from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of Aspen\u2019s success came early last season. The Skiers were 4-7 at one point before losing eight straight to close, including back-to-back losses to Basalt, the second coming in the district play-in game. Even in many of the losses, Aspen showed a competitiveness that it hadn\u2019t in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first two years here were in limbo and then last year it clicked,\u201d AHS senior Climary Sanchez said of her fellow seniors, who have played alongside each other since seventh grade. \u201cHaving that and playing with the girls we\u2019ve played with for a really long time, that makes a really good formula for success. Just baby steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanchez, who led the team in points scored last season, Trane and McGuire look to be the centerpiece trio for the Skiers this season. Juniors Meghann Smiddy and Kelley Francis, as well as senior Payton Curley, are all in position to be major contributors as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely a lot of glimpses. We picked up right where we left off last year,\u201d James Aldridge said. \u201cIf I can just get them to do the small things right. We\u2019ve been saying it all week, get these loose balls, get these rebounds, make your layups, get your feet settled. Just getting all of the simple stuff right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen opens its season Thursday at Meeker\u2019s eight-team tournament. The Skiers will play the host team at 7:30 p.m. in the first round and then play again Friday and Saturday. AHS went 1-2 in this same tournament last winter, beating Mancos in the consolation semifinals, 36-16.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal this year is to obviously have a good time, but have a good time and maybe win a few more,\u201d James Aldridge said. \u201cIf we can get a couple of wins, that would be huge. If we can just pump them up. I want them to go into games expecting to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

The Aspen High School girls basketball team practices on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times Going 4-15 overall usually isn\u2019t something to get excited about, but for the Aspen High School girls basketball team it was a breath of fresh air. With the husband and wife duo of […]<\/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":["post-2451866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 03:49:19","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\/2451866","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=2451866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}