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Sports briefs: Basalt basketball splits with Roaring Fork; Aspen freeski open returns

The Basalt High School boys basketball team won for the third time this season, beating visiting Roaring Fork 54-42 on Wednesday in the BHS gymnasium. The Longhorns improved to 3-14 overall, while the Rams fell to 3-12 with the season down to the final two weeks.

Also Wednesday, the Roaring Fork girls won 54-39 over Basalt to improve to 10-5 overall, while BHS fell to 6-9 after its fifth straight loss.

Both Basalt teams have two games remaining in the regular season, beginning with a final home game on Friday against Olathe and finishing with a trip to Aspen on Feb. 21.



The Aspen High School basketball teams competed Tuesday at Cedaredge, both falling in league contests.

The AHS boys lost 53-39 to the Bruins (4-12), having trailed 24-14 at halftime.




“Didn’t emphasize energy enough,” AHS coach Alex Schrempf wrote in a text. “Cedaredge came out for the senior night roaring and we couldn’t respond down the stretch. Lot of unforced errors on our end.”

The Skiers dropped to 10-7 overall after their third straight loss.

The AHS girls lost 59-13 at Cedaredge (13-3) on Tuesday to fall to 3-12 overall.

Both Aspen teams are next scheduled to play Friday at Coal Ridge and Saturday at Delta.

Aspen freeski open returns to Buttermilk on Thursday

The Aspen Snowmass Freeskiing Open returns to the X Games venue at Buttermilk beginning Thursday.

A Nor-Am Cup event, it features some of the nation’s — if not world’s — top rising talent who are trying to make the World Cup circuit. A handful of starters will likely have at least one World Cup start already.

Competition gets underway Thursday with the men’s ski slopestyle qualifiers. Heat 1 is scheduled to start at 9:25 a.m., followed by Heat 2 at 11:35 a.m. and Heat 3 at 1:40 p.m. Both the men’s and women’s slopestyle finals are scheduled for Friday morning, with men’s big air qualifiers slated for Friday afternoon.

The men’s and women’s superpipe finals are Saturday; qualifiers and finals will be held on the same day. Men’s and women’s big air finals also are scheduled for Saturday.

Spectating is free from the base of Buttermilk Ski Area.

Aspen’s Jarrell makes halfpipe final of Calgary World Cup

Aspen’s Cassidy Jarrell will compete in the final of the Calgary World Cup after making it through Wednesday’s qualifying round at Canada Olympic Park.

Jarrell was fourth in his qualifying heat with a score of 84 and will be the third to drop in for Friday’s 10-man final. The 20-year-old made his X Games Aspen debut last month.

Two-time reigning Olympic gold medalist David Wise of Nevada was the top qualifier Wednesday, followed by Telluride’s Gus Kenworthy and Boulder’s Lyman Currier.

Also making it through to finals are Winter Park’s Birk Irving, Canada’s Brendan MacKay, Avon’s Taylor Seaton, Norway’s Birk Ruud, Canada’s Noah Bowman and Oregon’s Hunter Hess.

The biggest name to miss the cut was world champion Aaron Blunck of Crested Butte, who had a best run of 79.80 in qualifying. Aspen’s Tristan Feinberg was ninth in his heat and also missed the finals cut. Feinberg is expected to return to Aspen this weekend for the freeski open.

Aspen’s Alex Ferreira, fresh off his second straight X Games gold medal, was originally slated to compete but did not start.

China’s Eileen Gu led the women’s qualifying, followed by Canada’s Rachael Karker and Russia’s Valeriya Demidova. The American trio of Brita Sigourney, Devin Logan and Abigale Hansen were the final three to qualify for the eight-woman final.

The Calgary event is the final World Cup for halfpipe skiers this season. It also includes snowboard halfpipe, with qualifiers scheduled for Thursday, and both ski and snowboard slopestyle this weekend.

acolbert@aspentimes.com