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Preps Feb. 8: Aspen basketball swept by Coal Ridge, hockey falls to CB

Aspen High School boys basketball against Coal Ridge on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, inside the AHS gymnasium. (Photo by Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times).
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

The Aspen High School basketball teams hosted Coal Ridge on Friday in what was dubbed senior night, falling twice to the visiting Titans.

In the boys’ game, Coal Ridge won 72-61 after jumping out to an early lead and holding on from there. The Titans led by seven points after a quarter and had a 41-27 lead at halftime. A strong finish by the Skiers kept the final score reasonably close, but they never truly threatened.

In the girls’ game, Aspen played a tightly contested first half but couldn’t keep pace down the stretch, losing 46-26.



The Coal Ridge boys improved to 13-3 (4-3 Western Slope League), while the Titan girls improved to 10-6 (4-3). The Aspen boys dropped to 5-12 (1-6) and the AHS girls to 4-12 (1-6).

Aspen will next host league-leading Delta Saturday, with the girls playing at 2:30 p.m. and the boys to follow around 4. The Skiers will close out the regular season Thursday at Basalt.




Aspen girls swimming off to strong start at state meet

The Aspen High School girls swim team began the Class 3A state swim meet with some solid performances in Friday’s preliminaries in Fort Collins. As expected, both of Aspen’s 200-yard relays (medley and freestyle) had the fastest prelim times. Those relays, which are comprised of Davy Brown, Emily Kinney, Laila Khan-Farooqi and Kayla Tehrani, were the top seed entering the meet. The 400-yard freestyle relay was 26th and won’t make finals.

Individually, Brown, who is a senior, qualified first in the 200-yard IM and will contend for the state title in the 100 back, a race she won as a sophomore.

Kinney was ninth in the 200 IM prelims, while Tehrani was fifth and Khan-Farooqi sixth in the 100 fly prelims. Kinney was fifth and Tehrani sixth in the 100 breast prelims. Aspen freshman Ava Cherry was 15th in the 500 free prelims.

The finals are scheduled for Saturday. AHS won the 3A state title in 2017 and was eighth in 2018.

Aspen hockey continues skid with loss to Crested Butte

The Aspen High School hockey team lost an important league game Friday night to Crested Butte, falling 5-2 at the Jorgensen Ice Rink in Gunnison. It was 1-1 after a period, Jack Pevny getting the equalizer for the Skiers midway through. But the Titans scored twice in less than a minute midway through the second period to pull ahead 3-1 before a goal by Aspen’s Ethan Hunt stopped the bleeding.

Crested Butte then answered with one more second-period goal to make it 4-2 and put it away with another early in the third.

It was the first of back-to-back games between the teams, with the second scheduled for noon Saturday, again in Gunnison. It was the fifth win in a row for the Peak Conference-leading Titans. Aspen fell to 5-7-4 after its sixth straight non-win.

AHS alpine finishes second and third at Ski Cooper

Thursday at Ski Cooper, the Aspen High School alpine ski team competed with the girls taking second and the boys third as a team.

In the girls’ giant slalom, Aspen was led by Levyn Thomas, who was second behind only Battle Mountain’s Gretchen Pavelich. The AHS girls had nine skiers finish in the top 17.

In the boys’ GS, Aspen’s top finisher was Trey Thorpe, who also came in second. Battle Mountain’s Will Bettenhausen took the win. The AHS boys had nine in the top 16.

The Skiers only have one meet remaining in the regular season, a Friday trip to Beaver Creek. The state meet is the following week in Durango.

Basalt girls basketball rallies to beat Olathe as boys fall

The Basalt High School girls basketball team pulled out a 63-59 overtime victory at Olathe on Friday. Basalt’s Zoe Vozick hit a pair of late 3-pointers in the final 20 seconds to send that game into overtime. It was the fourth win of the season for the Longhorns under first-year coach Amy Contini. BHS is now 4-14 overall with only Thursday’s home game with Aspen remaining in the regular season.

In the boys’ game, Olathe pulled away for a 76-60 win over the Longhorns. Basalt fell to 3-15 with the loss.

acolbert@aspentimes.com