The U19 Aspen Leafs girls’ hockey team has won the last six state championships in a row, but they are nowhere near tired of winning.

They showed that by obliterating their fierce rivals, Steamboat, by five goals to zero in the finals of the annual Fall Face Off tournament, which took place Oct 31 – Nov 2 at the Lewis Ice Arena. The tournament, which is viewed as a pre-season “warm up,” was an auspicious start to the season for the U19 girls.

“I feel that our team has a lot of potential and talent this year,” said Caroline Godfrey, a senior who claimed eight goals and two assists during the tournament. “Winning the Fall Face Off gave us the motivation and confidence to continue to grow as a team.”

This year the team has a new head coach, Elizabeth Stewart-Severy, who also teaches Journalism and English classes here at AHS.  Stewart-Severy, who grew up in Aspen, started playing ice hockey when she was 5 and quickly thereafter became hooked. At the time girls’ hockey didn’t even have a team at the time in Aspen, however her passion and love for the game drove her to play with the boys instead.

“I started playing with boys and then Aspen first got a girls’ team when I was eleven,” she remembered. “Then, there was only one girls’ team so regardless of how old you were, you played on the one team.”

Stewart-Severy went on to play hockey at the club level at CU Boulder and then landed a job writing for the Colorado Avalanche team website.

“I’m really competitive when it comes to hockey, not going to lie,” she said. “I just love the game. It’s fast and there are so many different skills involved.”

Junior Ali McNichol, who is a productive forward, looks up to Elizabeth and thinks she will help the U-19 girls win even more.

“Her competitive spirit will inspire us to play with heart,” McNichol said, “She is a role model, having played at the college level. She also provides great feedback and an ideal to aspire to.”

One of the special things about the U-19 girls team is that there is not one star. Stewart-Severy has inherited a team full of natural goal makers. In the Fall Faceoff, Cally Erickson, who is now out for the entire season with a knee injury, captured 14 points overall (7 goals, 7 assists); Brook Pisani, a junior, collected 11 points (8 goals, 3 assists); and Godfrey ended up with 10 points.

Another special aspect of this team is that most of the girls have been playing hockey together since they were in elementary school. They have grown up on the ice together. The team is also small — only ten players are on the roster– but incredibly tight knit, something Stewart-Severy believes gives them a competitive edge.

“They’ve been playing together so long and they know each other so well, there’s a really terrific team dynamic,” Stewart-Severy said, “They span all grades in high school but they still all really get along.”

One new member of the team this year is Sonya Benson, a freshman goalie.

“She’s very young but she’s doing an amazing job of holding it together,” Stewart-Severy said. “We only have one goalie so she’s got some serious pressure.”

Like everyone on this small, cohesive team, Stewart-Severy’s main goals this year are simple and straightforward:

“I want to win!” she said enthusiastically. “I really hope that everybody walks away from this season feeling like it was worthwhile and they got better at hockey and they had a lot of fun. And I think the best way to feel that is if we win the state championship.”

Game on, girls!