Huskies giant, yet again

Click to Enlarge Browse Vail Daily Photos Vail Christian’s Mick Seemann, seen during last week’s slalom race at Beaver CReek, shed his freeride gear Friday and took ninth in a giant slalom on Aspen Mountain Dominque Taylor/Vail Daily WEB EXTRAS Aspen GS boys results Aspen GS girls results Get Sports Feeds

Ian Cropp
Vail, CO Colorado
January 18, 2008

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ASPEN, Colorado — The cast has been a bit different, and the show has moved to a different venue, but the results are just about the same for the Battle Mountain girls ski team.

In a giant slalom at Aspen Mountain on Friday, the Huskies had three racers in the top 10 and picked up their second GS win in as many races. Last week in a slalom at Beaver Creek, Battle Mountain had two girls in the top 10 and came in second.

“It was awesome,” said Battle Mountain coach Simon Marsh. “They are certainly setting a standard, and they’ll have to work hard to live up to it, but I think they can do it.”

Leading the way for the Huskies in second place was Marisa Ammaturo — the third different top finisher for the Battle Mountain girls this year. Kelly VanHee, who won the Beaver Creek slalom, was fourth, just 0.12 seconds off the podium. Skimeister Jamie Lee Roberts took ninth for her third top 10 in alpine. Annie Talbot, while not scoring, took 13th.

Jenny Allen, of Steamboat, won the race with a time of 1 minute, 25.88 seconds, almost two seconds ahead of Ammaturo.

Eagle Valley placed seventh, with Shanna Zoch in 19th. Nicole Luczkow was 28th, followed by Katie Brandes in 47th.

Vail Mountain tied for ninth and saw Taylor Campbell (36th), Axie Navas (44th) and Kathleen Moore (52) score.

Ammaturo, a club racer, had the misfortune of starting 135th on the first run.
“There were ruts, but I didn’t want to get intimidated,” she said.

After putting down the seventh-fastest first run, Ammaturo had the third-best second pass, landing her on the podium in her first high school race this season.

“I was so stoked to ski (giant slalom),” Ammaturo said. “We were all excited.”
VanHee, who doesn’t race club, had two great runs to improve upon her last giant slalom finish by eight places.

“She’s skiing so well,” Marsh said. “She’s valuable to the team and makes great strides every week.”

Roberts extended her Skimeister lead, while a few more of her teammates cracked the top 40. Anna Schmitt took 24th, followed by Jana Weiss in 31st, Trisha Bruen in 34th and Piper McMillin in 37th.

Vail Mountain’s Joely Denkinger had a great first run but had to hike on her second.

Free skier, free spirit
Vail Christian’s Corey Seemann is a freeride skier, but that doesn’t stop him from knocking gates with the best of ’em.

Seemann led the Saints, and all local boys, with a ninth-place finish.

“That’s awesome,” Seemann said when informed of his top-10 finish. “I’m not a racer. I get out there on performance skis once in a great while and crank those turns. It’s an awesome feeling.”

Armed with some new Volkl skis, Seemann decided to shed his usual freeride jacket and pants, even in single-digit temperatures.

“Today was my second day ever being on the skis. It was quite exciting,” Seemann said. “In the past two races, I raced in my freeride gear, but today I stripped down to a racing suit. It was a different feeling but good.”

Sitting in 13th after the first run, Seemann had the seventh-best second pass to crack into the top 10 and qualify for state.

Summit’s Zach Fretz edged Aspen’s Sam Coffey by 0.05 seconds to win. The Tigers, with a third-place and fifth-place finish tacked on to Fretz’s win, picked up the team title for the day. Aspen was second.

With only five skiers starting, Vail Mountain placed fifth and saw three in the top 25. Jens Kjesbo led the way with two solid runs to take 19th. Axel Spaeh was just 0.02 seconds behind Kjesbo in 20th. John McKenna, the team’s No. 5 seed, rounded out the scoring in 23rd.

Battle Mountain was only three points behind Vail Mountain in seventh. Leading the Huskies was freshman Christoph Neiderhauser, who moved up a bunch of places with the 10th-best second run to place 17th. Fellow freshman Zachary Ziolkowski, the No. 17 seed for the Huskies, had two nearly identical runs to place 22nd. Davey DeChant closed out the scoring in 28th, while Ike Sheppard (35th), Elliott Brenner (39th), Jake Bishop (41st) and J.T. Schmitt (46th) cracked the top 50.

The Saints were eighth, with Brennan Steege qualifying for state in 34th. Skimeister racer Eric Gallager was 83rd.

Eagle Valley took ninth, with Cody Coulter 45th, Griffin Turnipseed 55th and Nick Whitehead 61st.

For full results, see www.vaildaily.com.

Sports Writer Ian Cropp can be reached at 748-2935 or icropp@vaildaily.com.