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MINTURN — The sibling duo of Elsie and Anders Weiss, both skiing for Aspen, were each crowned champions during the first day of the state skiing championships.
Elsie, a freshman, cruised to a first-place finish in the classic start, winning her race when she finished in 16:56.5. Anders, a sophomore, won his race about 30 minutes later when he finished with a top time of 14:33.6.
For each, it was the first high school race they’d won all season. Elsie had finished second twice, and third another time, and Anders had multiple top-10 finishes.
Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s Lola Villafranco (17:15.0) was second, Middle Park’s Sylvia Brower (17:35.6) was third, Vail Mountain’s Izzy Glackin was fourth (17:35.6), and Aspen’s Eva McDonough (17:53.0) placed fifth.
Aspen’s girls team had six finishers among the top 11, and three in the top six.
On the boys side, Taiga Moore of Aspen helped the Skiers finish 1-2 when he finished in 14:47.3. Middle Park had Alex Holinka (14:55.5) place third, and Sebastian Brower (15:06.2) place fourth. Ferguson St. John of Eagle Valley (15:09.5) was fifth.
Middle Park had four of the top nine finishers in the race.
The day started with alpine races in giant slalom, and it was a pair of freshman who won the events.
In the girls race, Aspen’s Samantha Edelman edged Battle Mountain’s Berit Frischholz for the title with a two-run time of 2:14.56. Frischholz was just 0.41 back with a time of 2:14.97.
Also placing in the top-5 for the girls was Evergreen teammates Jenna Blatchford (2:16.40) and Kylee Ornstein (2:16.48), as well as Stella Sherlock of Aspen (2:17.14).
Aspen also had skiers finish six and eighth, giving them four of the top eight placers.
In the boys race, Durango’s Toby Scarpella won with a two-run time of 2:10.97, giving the Demons their first individual state championship since the program returned three years ago. The program previously went away in the 1980s.
Vail Mountain’s Cole Pattison (2:12.07) placed second, and was followed by Aspen’s Charlie Olsen (2:13.75), Vail Mountain’s Mackay Pattison (2:14.97), and Battle Mountain’s Jakub Pecinka (2:14.99).
Battle Mountain had three finishers place in the top-10 in the GS, while Aspen and Vail Mountain each had two.
The state championships conclude on Friday with the slalom (alpine) and skate (nordic) races. A complete schedule is available here.
In terms of the team race, Aspen leads both the boys and the girls fields, and Battle Mountain sits in second for both. Their girls have totaled 342 points through two events, ahead of Battle Mountain’s 303.5 points. The boys have a 324-311 lead over Battle Mountain.
