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Twice as nice: Aspen High boys and girls ski teams sweep state championships at Highlands

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Austin Colbert

The Aspen High School boys and girls Alpine ski teams celebrate after winning the CHSAA state Alpine skiing championships on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, at Aspen Highlands.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

On home snow looking to make history, the Aspen High School Alpine ski teams both delivered in the biggest way Friday on the second and final day of the CHSAA Alpine state skiing championships at Aspen Highlands.

“Both put aside their individual goals in favor of the team result, and that’s what is so important,” AHS ski coach Jennifer Morandi-Benson said. “I feel like we’ve achieved a team culture within an individual sport — for the girls to have come together as a team, for the boys to have come together as a team, and really to put aside their individual accomplishments.”

For the first time since 2021, AHS walked away as state champions in skiing, winning both the boys and girls Alpine titles after two days of racing at Highlands. It is the 12th skiing championship for the AHS boys in program history, and the 11th for the girls. Summit remains king and queen of skiing in Colorado with 22 state championships apiece for the boys and girls.

Entering Friday’s slalom, the AHS boys had ground to make up following Thursday’s giant slalom, while the girls had the lead after the first day but needed to play defense in order to maintain their top spot.

“Both girls and boys teams were consistent throughout the season,” Morandi-Benson said. “The girls had an amazing first day and they just needed to maintain their lead and did it. The boys had a tougher time. They needed to make up 11 points, and they did. They really came from behind and won it. To see both of those scenarios play out within technical disciplines — a lot can go wrong, and a lot can go right, but it went right for us today.”


Aspen won the boys team title by only three points, edging runner-up Steamboat Springs, 332 to 329.

In Friday’s slalom, Summit’s Seth Montgomery won with a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 3.17 seconds, barely a breath ahead of the next finisher. In second and third were AHS sophomores Matt McDermott (1:03.18) and Joshua Stephen (1:05.27), while Aspen junior Thomas Robinson was fifth in 1:06.81.

Montgomery also won Thursday’s GS, with Stephen finishing second.

Durango senior Mathilde Roskam won the girls slalom on Friday in 1:10.29, followed in second by Battle Mountain’s Eden DeMino (1:10.66) and Summit’s Mackenzie Cross (1:11.20). In fourth was Aspen’s top finisher, senior Darienne Kenny (1:12.68).

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Aspen’s Eden Bohart (1:13.28), Rocksy Kroeger (1:13.36), and Lexi Munro (1:13.66) finished sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively.

This was the first time in the state’s history that Alpine and Nordic were separated from each other. In the past, the team state skiing champions were determined by combining results from Alpine and Nordic, but this winter the two are being individually recognized. The Nordic state championships are next Thursday and Friday in Steamboat Springs.

This week also marked Aspen’s first time hosting the Alpine state championships since 2016.

“Putting on the state championships in Aspen was a labor of love,” Morandi-Benson said. “We all had to come together, and it was such a collaborative community effort. It was so impressive. When you say community event, this is exactly what this was.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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