Alpine Skiing: Aspen Wins Girls State Title, Durango’s Roskam Wins Slalom Event

ASPEN — The Aspen Skiers left little doubt as to who the top Alpine girls team in the state was on championship weekend.

Without an individual win in either of the giant slalom or slalom at their home Aspen Highlands hill on Thursday or Friday, Aspen littered both podiums en route to the team’s inaugural Alpine title.

“A lot of hard work went into this and it’s just amazing to see the team all come together,” Aspen senior Eden Bohart said. “Everyone’s just so happy. We had such great coaches that led us to this.”

Aspen won day one’s giant slalom by 11 points before placing four athletes in the top eight in Friday’s slalom. Senior Darienne Kenny led the way in fourth, then senior Eden Bohart, junior Rocksy Kroeger and senior Lexi Munro went 6-7-8, respectively.

The Skiers relied not on their top-of-the-podium talent (though they’ve certainly threatened the gold and silver medals this season), but instead on their consistent team depth. Each of the top four Aspen skiers finished within one second of each other.

“The girls team was kind of a silent sleeper for us,” Aspen head coach Jennifer Morandi-Benson (who earned the Colorado High School Ski League Coach of the Year honors) said. “They just kind of grew throughout the season and didn’t win every race but they were consistently in the top three all season. … It was just kind of a slow and steady situation and then we just started noticing we were getting four in the top 10 consistently.”

Aspen started a total of six skiers: sophomore Kahler Marsh finished 36th and senior Morgan Phillips — who had top-10 finishes in the slalom throughout the season — did not finish the race.

The Skiers won Friday’s slalom event outright. Summit took third and Battle Mountain took second. That’s also how the three teams finished in the overall team race, with Aspen claiming first place and Battle Mountain second.

For the Summit Tigers, junior Mackenzie Cross led the way with a third-place finish, including a second-best first run. Fellow junior Kilee Blakely took 10th and sophomore Katelyn Lemon took 19th to round out scorers.

Battle Mountain was led by freshman Eden DeMino, leapfrogging her junior sister Ruthie after they went 1-2 in Thursday’s giant slalom. On Friday, Eden once again silvered but was the top placing Huskie. Ruthie was second with a ninth place and junior Thea Armistead was 12th.

Durango senior Mathilde Roskam was the overall slalom winner, posting a time of 1 minute and 10.29 seconds. Eden DeMino’s second place came in at 1:10.66, Cross’ bronze came in at 1:11.20. Aspen’s Kenny, in fourth, posted a time of 1:12.68 and Steamboat Springs freshman Lucille Dietrich came in fifth at 1:13.14.

For the first time this season, the Alpine and Nordic state championships were split apart. Aspen’s state title in the inaugural Alpine competition was the program’s 11th skiing state championship overall, the second-most behind Summit’s 22.

“We all just really wanted to put it out there and try our hardest,” Kenny said. “Having it at home and winning at home was something that was super special.”

Aspen got to share the love with the school’s boys team, which also walked away with a state championship.