Tracksters catch fire on home turf

Aspen High’s Hardy Andersen won all four events he entered – the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and, with teammates, the 4×100 relay.It was that kind of a day Saturday for the Aspen High track and field athletes. The AHS boys won the one and only meet of the season in Aspen, and the Aspen girls took second place behind top performances by Brittany Fortier, Christy Severy and Kyla Walter, winners in the 400 meters, 1600 meters and 300 hurdles, respectively.”The whole thing was fun to watch because we had so many Aspen athletes who did so well, and we had lots of folks out there rooting for them,” said Aspen track and field coach Chris Keleher. “It doesn’t happen too often and it was nice to see.”The boys also counted Noah Hoffman and David Porter as winners. Hoffman won the 1600, or mile, and Porter – most recently seen in a baseball uniform – won the high jump. Then Ryan Waldron took top honors in the 3200 meters, or two-mile.”A couple of things stood out,” said Keleher. “First, there’s Hardy Andersen, winning the four events he entered in, Carl Lewis-style. That’s an impressive day, and I think it bodes really well for him going into regionals.””Waldron ran an exceptionally intelligent race to win the two-miler, and he’s just a sophomore. I think it was a breakthrough race for him, up against a pretty good racer from Olathe. That was a fun one to watch. He out-kicked the guy with about 100 meters to go down the homestretch as the crowd went nuts,” Keleher continued.”Hoffman did really well in the mile, but he’s off to a national level bike race, so he won’t be going to regionals. … I thought Katie Bird ran really well in the 200. And she’s really improved this year. She’s only a freshman and she’ll be one to watch coming up. It seems like we’re always in rebuilding mode and now finally we have a team to build around.”And the Severy report?”Of course, Christy won in a decent time. But she wasn’t really pushed. Brittany was quite good in the 400. And that she went 1-2 with Natalie Obermeyer, that was awesome,” Keleher said.”Then there’s David Porter winning the boys high jump, which hasn’t happened for us in a while. I think he could sneak in there at regionals and surprise some people.”Tim Mutrie’s e-mail address is mutrie@aspentimes.com