{"id":2454239,"date":"2020-02-06T22:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/youth-not-a-problem-for-aspen-high-school-alpine-ski-team-at-home-race\/"},"modified":"2020-02-06T22:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T05:32:00","slug":"youth-not-a-problem-for-aspen-high-school-alpine-ski-team-at-home-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/youth-not-a-problem-for-aspen-high-school-alpine-ski-team-at-home-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth not a problem for Aspen High School alpine ski team at home race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A skier for Aspen High School\u2019s Alpine Team competes in the first run of the Giant Slalom State Qualifier at Aspen Highlands on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Take a look at the results of Thursday\u2019s ski races and one thing stands out above the rest for Aspen High School: the Skiers are ridiculously young.<\/p>\n

Hosting its lone home meet of the season at snowy Aspen Highlands, the AHS alpine team seemingly cruised to the girls title and likely won the boys crown behind a group of mostly freshmen. The results weren\u2019t official as of Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible. We graduated 21 seniors last year and now we have these freshmen that are just killing it,\u201d AHS coach Jennifer Morandi-Benson said. \u201cIt just ebbs and flows. Like last year, it was all about the seniors. This year, it\u2019s the freshmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the http:\/\/www.live-timing.com<\/a> results, which aren\u2019t expected to be made official by CHSAA until at least Friday, Aspen had six girls finish in the top nine in Thursday\u2019s giant slalom, a group that includes five freshmen and a sophomore. AHS also had two freshmen boys finish in the top seven.<\/p>\n

Morandi-Benson wasn\u2019t expecting a rebuilding season by any means, but she also didn\u2019t know what to expect from a large group of underclassmen that were mostly unknown to her. As the season approaches the finish line, it\u2019s clear the team\u2019s youth isn\u2019t a hindrance in the slightest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are new to me. The freshmen are new to me,\u201d Morandi-Benson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got the talent in our freshmen, for sure, but we are always, always building. Especially with our Aspen High School athletes only, because we are a team that incorporates club racing. So we are constantly in that cycle of building and setting goals for the athletes that aren\u2019t on the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the team\u2019s own unofficial math, AHS cruised to the girls title on Thursday. Freshman Samantha Edelman won with a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 19.18 seconds, edging out Battle Mountain senior Berit Frischholz. In third was Aspen freshman Lauren Haerter, in fourth AHS freshman Cate Simpson, in seventh AHS freshman Stella Sherlock, in eighth AHS sophomore Kailey Murphy, and in ninth AHS freshman Maddie Hicks.<\/p>\n

Battle Mountain sophomore Will Bettenhausen won the boys race in 1:21:56 \u2014 the boys raced last and finished up on a snowier, slower course \u2014 while the Vail Mountain School duo of Cole Pattison and MacKay Pattison took second and third, respectively. In fourth was Aspen junior James Kelly, followed by AHS freshmen Connor Stephen, AHS junior Thomas Morris and AHS freshman Turner Estock.<\/p>\n

Despite fresh snowfall on the Thunderbowl track Thursday morning, the races went off without much difficulty ahead of a strong winter storm that hit the area by late afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so lucky. We were bracing ourselves,\u201d Morandi-Benson said. \u201cThe course held up really, really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen is down to only one regular-season race, a Feb. 14 slalom at Loveland. Then, after a week off, the Skiers will head to the state championship at Beaver Creek on Feb. 27 and 28. So far, AHS has qualified 29 skiers for giant slalom at state (combined boys and girls) and 20 for slalom.<\/p>\n

The AHS boys are the two-time defending champions in the combined alpine-nordic event, while the AHS girls were runner-up in 2019 after winning it all in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely we have a shot, and I think Nordic is doing really well,\u201d Morandi-Benson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AHS nordic team is scheduled to host its lone home races of the season on Saturday, weather permitting.<\/p>\n

The high school boys are slated to start at 10:50 a.m., followed by the high school girls at 1 p.m. The high school awards are set for 1:30 p.m., with the middle school racing to get underway around 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

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

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

A skier for Aspen High School\u2019s Alpine Team competes in the first run of the Giant Slalom State Qualifier at Aspen Highlands on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Take a look at the results of Thursday\u2019s ski races and one thing stands out above the rest for Aspen High […]<\/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-2454239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 16:56:51","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\/2454239","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=2454239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}