It doesn’t take much to see why Eliza Lennox is one of the best girls swimmers to come out of Boulder County. One needs only to look at her performance at the Class 4A state meet earlier this month.

During the final high school meet of her career, the Coyotes senior nabbed not one, not two, but three state titles en route to a team runner-up finish, the best in Monarch’s history. She began her night with gold in the 200-yard medley relay — alongside Audrey Shambo, Gwyneth Christensen and Sophia Banjo — and ended it with top performances in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle.

She likewise claimed crowns in the 50 free and 100 free as a junior, and won the 200 medley relay as a sophomore, earning her Daily Camera swimmer of the year honors. Her ascension to team leader in her final season lit the fire even more.

“Being team captain was probably the best thing that’s ever happened,” Lennox said. “My team is so incredible, and being able to not only have the leadership role of being one of the better swimmers on the team, but also leading the team this year, I was close with every single girl. I could tell you the name of every single girl on that team, and just watching their success just made me want to push myself even harder to show up for them and show up for myself. “At (the Granite Peaks League championships), watching these girls hit PRs and times they never thought they’d hit, and watching them compete, I got so antsy. I was like, ‘It’s my turn. I need to be in the pool and do my thing just like they’re doing it.’ Something about being team captain and having the responsibility of looking over everybody made me see pieces of the sport that I never saw before. I fell back in love with competing.”

She raked in times of 23.21 seconds in the 50 free, 50.64 seconds in the 100 free, and a collective mark of 1 minute, 46.08 seconds in the 200 medley relay. All of the work she had put in from her freshman year had finally come to fruition in her junior and senior seasons.

Her success at the state meet was just a splash in the tidal wave that was Monarch swimming this year. The Coyotes coalesced to throw down strong performances across the board — as evidenced by Shambo’s additional individual crown in the 100 breaststroke — to claim their team runner-up title, the first in the program’s history.

They scored 304 points to trail behind state champion Cheyenne Mountain (350) while also edging local rival Broomfield (291).“They honestly were not tracking points or places, and I don’t think they really knew what they were out there doing,” head coach Amber Austin said.

“They were just out there swimming their very best and having a really fun time — one final meet together as a big group of seniors. I think they were more focused on that and then very surprised at the end with the result.”

As Lennox’s high school career comes to a close, she’s continuing to look for viable options to swim in college. Austin knows that no matter where she ends up, she’ll excel just as she always had with the Coyotes.

“Eliza is somebody that leads by her actions, more than anything,” Austin said. “She is incredibly disciplined and really likes to execute training to its highest potential, which I think leads to other people noticing that and also wanting to kind of up their game or level up. At the state meet, she clearly had some great swims, had some really great times and just incredible energy that was probably really contagious to her teammates. It was really cool to see.”