Roaring Fork High School’s girls and boys basketball teams kicked off the 2025-26 season with the annual Brenda Patch Tournament Dec. 4-6 on the home court in Carbondale.
The Lady Rams emerged as the tournament champions for a second straight year, taking care of business in convincing fashion, and affirming their top-10 state ranking in the process.
“The girls played one of their best games that I’ve seen since I’ve been the coach at Roaring Fork on Saturday afternoon against Palisade,” third-year head coach Mike Vidakovich said.
Fast starts in the first and second half propelled the Rams to a 67-42 win in the tournament final.
Junior Riley Bevington leads Class 3A in scoring at 29.3 points per game through the three tournament games, in which she scored 30, 26 and 32 points, respectively.
Meanwhile, senior Nikki Tardif and junior Hazel Jenkins dominated the inside game.
Tardif averaged 10.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, and had numerous blocked shots (4.3 blocks per game), according to stats provided by the coaching staff. Jenkins turned in an average of 9.6 rebounds per game, and sophomore Annelise Bumgarner tallied 29 points for the weekend to balance the Roaring Fork offensive attack.
The Roaring Fork ladies scored a 60-40 win over Steamboat Springs to open the tournament on Thursday, and returned to the court on Friday to defeat Rifle by the same score.
In the boys bracket, Roaring Fork opened with an 89-63 win over Plateau Valley on Thursday before falling 72-65 to Fort Lupton on Friday. The Rams returned to defeat Plateau Valley a second time on Saturday, 64-48, to claim third place.
Winning the boys tournament were the Banning Lewis Stallions, who rolled to wins of 65-25 over Basalt, 79-14 over Grand Valley and 94-34 over Fort Lupton in the final.
Leading scorers for Roaring Fork through the tournament were senior Ryder Tezanos with 22 in game one, and senior Lucas Carballeira with 17 against Fort Lupton and 19 in the rematch with Plateau Valley.
The Rams were in control of the Fort Lupton game, holding a 17-point advantage at one point and taking a 57-51 lead into the fourth quarter, before giving up a 21-8 stretch through the final eight minutes of play.
Both Roaring Fork teams close out the pre-holiday slate of games this weekend at a tournament hosted by Weld Central High School in Keenesburg.
Girls swimming
Also opening their season this weekend was the Glenwood Springs High School girls swim team, which combines student-athletes from Glenwood, Roaring Fork and Basalt high schools.
The Lady Demons hosted a meet at the Glenwood Springs Community Center pool on Friday, Dec. 5. Glenwood won as a team with 261 points to Durango’s 159 and Summit’s 154.
Event winners for Glenwood were Maya Valean in the 100 Breast stroke, Sylvia Duchscher in the 100 Fly, and the Demons’ 400 Free and 200 Medley relay teams.
Ellie Rippy was third in the 100 Free, Valean second in the 100 Fly, Duchscher second in the 200 Free, and Isla Friel third in the 200 Individual Medley and fourth in the 100 Breast.
Glenwood also competed at the Southwest Conference Relay Meet in Grand Junction on Saturday, Dec. 6. Results were not immediately available.