Winter Park – Brittany Perkins of Summit did as expected and won her fourth straight state title in the nordic classic on Friday, and it might be tough to pry that trophy away from the Perkins family over the next couple of years.
Perkins, a senior, cruised to first place on the 5-kilometer course in 20 minutes, 6.4 seconds at the YMCA of the Rockies Snow Mountain Ranch Nordic Center to make it four state titles in her high school career, two each in the classic and freestyle, with a fifth possible today.
Sister Briana Perkins, a sophomore, finished in second place (21:27.6) with eyes on next year’s prize.
“Brittany and I were hoping to go 1-2, but we knew I would have to push it,” Brianna Perkins said. “Once Brittany moves on, I think I can do it.”
The first of two days of boys and girls competition at the high school state skiing championships featured the giant slalom on the Meadows and Lower Hughes runs at Winter Park, which received 3 inches of snow overnight, and the nordic classic at the Nordic Center. The slalom and nordic freestyle competitions will be held Saturday.
Noah Hoffman of Aspen won the boys nordic classic with a time of 17:35.3, a full 15 seconds ahead of Kevin Soller of Summit. Lake County’s Alex Willis took third in 18:10.3.
In the boys’ portion of the giant slalom, Aspen’s Paul Britvar and Wiley Maple finished two-tenths of a second apart to take first and second, respectively.
Maple put up the day’s best time on his first run, 56.75, but Britvar, the defending slalom champion, edged his teammate with a quicker second run for a two-run combined time of 1:56.88.
“Britvar is a top-quality racer, no doubt,” Steamboat Springs coach Chad Bowdre said. “You are looking at some fast kids.”
Stephen Buzbee nearly gave the Skiers, the aptly named mascot for the defending boys team state champions, the top three spots, but Len Feroldi of Platte Canyon moved ahead for a third place finish. Mark Miller of Summit rounded out the top five.
Summit’s Alex Guras, the two-time defending girls team champion, dusted the field with a two-run time of 2:01.57, nearly four seconds ahead of second-place finisher RaeLynn Miller of host school Middle Park.
