The Aspen High baseball team got thumped over the weekend at the Montrose Tournament, losing three games by a combined score of 35-1.

Aspen, 0-4 on the season, has yet to hold its first practice outside this season, Aspen coach Rick Ryan said.

“We played up in class and the guys played really hard, we’ve just got too many guys out of position,” he said. “But our goal remains Meeker on April 6 when we open league play with a double-header. Everything up until then is practice for us. Our goal is to win the [Class 3A Western Slope] league title and I still feel that way about our team. We’re just off to a slow start.”

Aspen opened the weekend tourney with a 15-0 loss to Montrose on Friday. On Saturday, Aspen managed its only run of the weekend in a 10-1 defeat to Manuel Denver, followed by a 10-0 loss to Glenwood Springs.

“We only scored one run in three games, but in all three games our pitchers only gave up nine earned runs out of 35 runs – we had a lot of errors,” Ryan said.

AHS freshman Pat Faurer and senior Eddie Monge had respectable outings at the plate against Manuel Denver on Saturday, Ryan said. Faurer was 2-for-3 and Monge was 3-for-3.

“Pat’s a great hitter,” Ryan said. “He’s out-hitting everybody right now as a freshman, and he had a diving catch in right field too. Eddie’s off to a pretty good start too. He pitched really well against Glenwood, but we didn’t help him at all. I can only think of three clean hits off him the entire game.

“If we played these same teams at the end of the year, we’d have a real good shot of winning every one of them,” Ryan said. “But it’s the fielding mistakes and it’s tough when we haven’t been outside.”

Following spring break, Aspen returns to the diamond on April 2 at Grand Valley. “We’ve got to be ready to go then, and I think we will be,” the coach said.