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Hockey: Aspen skates to first win in Steamboat Springs

Luke GrahamSteamboat Pilot & TodayAspen, CO Colorado

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – On paper, Tuesday’s Aspen-Steamboat Springs High School hockey game appeared to sway heavily toward the hosts.The Sailors were undefeated, had gotten scoring from up and down their roster and talked vehemently about a deep playoff run. But skill only goes so far.Aspen outskated, outhustled, beat Steamboat to a good of percentage of loose pucks and rode the hot goaltending of sophomore Alex Parrish, downing Steamboat, 3-1.”As a team it’s the best we’ve played,” said Parrish, who made 31 saves. “As an individual I’m pretty proud of my performance but I still have some things to work on.”That’s good news for a scrappy Aspen team that came in winless.But it was evident from the first faceoff the Skiers were the team willing to do the extra work for their first win.It started just 4 minutes, 16 seconds into the first period when Steamboat goaltender Joey Haight struggled to clear the puck behind his own net and Aspen’s Colter Robinson pounced on it for a 1-0 lead.The Sailors instantly got back into it three minutes later, when Jake Bearss skated hard up the right side, deked Parrish and went top shelf to tie the score at 1.From there, though, the Sailors looked lackadaisical, often falling behind the play and finishing second to the puck.”Give a lot of credit to Aspen,” Steamboat coach Jeff Ruff said. “They came in with a losing record and their game plan was to skate hard and beat us to the puck. They did that.”The two teams were scoreless for most of the second, before Steamboat’s problems with penalties finally caught up the Sailors.Steamboat spent six minutes in the penalty box in the second period and Aspen finally capitalized.With two minutes left in the second Levi Fetteroff blasted a shot that bounded out to the stick of Taylor Mayer. Mayer pounded and pounded the puck, before it finally squeaked in for a 2-1 lead.”It takes us a while to get to where we want to be,” Aspen coach Al Butler said. Tuesday “was that turning point where we did everything we wanted to do.”Aspen’s Colter Birk scored late on the power play for the final result.Aspen (1-3-0) next plays at 7 p.m. Friday at home against Summit.