When they assembled on the awards stand for winning the 2A Girls state crown, the Paonia girls each held up five fingers. As in five consecutive state championships.
That's something no other team in 2A has done. Ever. Not Lyons. Not Akron. Not Limon. Not even Hotchkiss back when they were a 3A dynasty. It ties for the longest continuous span of consecutive state titles in any classification.
Can they extend it to six next year with Brianna Van Vleet, Sophia Anderson, Emily Pieper, and McKenna Hartigan walking the aisle (um, not that aisle, the other aisle) this spring? Well, that's another question for another year, but it is a lot of points humming Pomp and Circumstance.
For two days this weekend, however, it was the old, familiar Paonia machine grinding out point after point.
Paonia spotted Telluride a considerable lead in Saturday morning's 3200, but once the Eagles started scoring, there was no stopping them.
By the end of the day Friday, Paonia was already up on Telluride 61-32, and there remained no realistic hope that order of finish would change on Saturday. Nor did it.
Friday's demolition of the resistance was led by 1-2 finishes in the triple jump (Sophia Anderson and McKenna Palmer) and the 200 (Anderson and Emily Pieper). A late stumble by Remington Ross in the 200 worked in Paonia's favor. Tucked in, under, and around those 18-point bundles were a first in the 4x200, a second in the SMR8, and a third in the 4x800 at the end of the day.
You don't have to scoring very many times when you're scoring with those kind of numbers.
Saturday produced more of the same.
Anderson finished second in the 100. Brooke Hillman added a third in the 800. Brianna Van Vleet matched that third with one of her own in the 400 later in the day. Palmer got a point in the 100 hurdles.
Paonia saved their biggest point haul of the meet, though, for the long jump. Van Vleet took her customary place in first, followed by Pieper in third, and Palmer in sixth. If the title wasn't sealed before then, that certainly locked things down for good.
Both Sunday relays added a trickle of points to the total.
As resounding as Paonia's win was, however, there were winds of change blowing all through Saturday and Sunday. New faces are about to take over some events, and in some cases already have.
Specifically, the sprints and relays look to be facing the full wrath and fury of Highland's Remington Ross and Holyoke's Taeryn Trumper for the next three years. Trumper left her mark in the long jump pit at 17-5. Ross dominated the 100 and might have won the 200 has well but for a fateful step.
Though with only two years of high school remaining, Kaiya Firor of Hotchkiss marked herself as another face of the 2A future, dominating both the 400 and the 300 hurdles.