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Panguitch • Principal Rod Quarnberg has a problem most administrators would love to tackle: His school is running out of room for all the athletic trophies it is collecting.
While the Panguitch boys' teams are certainly contributing, a core group of girls in the school of about 150 students has put together an incredible run in track, cross country, volleyball and basketball.
The Bobcat girls won four of the past five 1A cross-country titles and finished second by two points to Parowan this year, though star Whittni Orton won the individual crown by over three minutes.
The girls' team owns three straight track titles and captured its second straight volleyball crown this fall.
But it is basketball where Panguitch has been most dominant the past two years. In winning their second straight 2A title last year by beating Piute 58-28, the Bobcats' smallest margin of victory was 21. They beat foes including 3A's Dixie and Pine View by an average of 40 points. They won their first state tournament game last year 87-10. And, going into a tough late December schedule that includes games against 3A powers Juab and Cedar City, their win streak approached 60 games.
Darri Frandsen graduated from last year's squad and is playing for Southern Utah this year. Catania Holman, another starter a year ago, is running cross-country at SUU. Orton has signed with BYU to run cross-country next season. And Chesney Campbell is entertaining several offers to play college volleyball or basketball.
Orton, Campbell, Taylor Bennett and Brianne Bremner make up the senior core of this year's class, a group of girls that began playing basketball together in fourth grade, where they showed competitiveness and a work ethic that continue to amaze.
"We played lots of people older than us," said Bennett, whose mother, Tammi, is an assistant coach who played on the school's first girls' basketball championship team in 1987 as a freshman. "We got clobbered. We always wanted to go play."
It didn't take long before the girls showed their potential. Bremner remembers being in fifth grade and beating some sixth- and seventh-graders from a nearby town 50-0 in one game and beating another team 68-3.
Veteran coach Curtis Barney, who has invested the last 40 years in Panguitch basketball, knew this group would be special when the girls were in the sixth grade.
"We played a club team in St. George and they beat us by 25 points," he recalled. "Most teams I coached in my life would say they don't want to do that again. They wanted to go back and practice for two weeks and have me set up another game [with the same team]. That's when I knew they would not back down from a challenge."
Barney said the girls' work ethic in the classroom and the gym, their talent, and the fact they genuinely enjoy being with each other pulled him out of a one-year retirement in 2010.
"I'm not dumb," he said when asked why he came back. "A year later, they asked me if I wanted it back. Knowing what we had, it didn't take long to say yes. It's year to year but, at some point, you can't do it forever. I will be doing this as long as I have fun."
The team uses the word "fun" often. Campbell remembers being mad when her family took her to Hawaii because she wanted to play in a tournament.
"We have never not had a fun trip," said Bennett, adding that "we are good friends. No one is excluded. The freshmen that come in, we all go together."
"We put the fights and the drama behind us," added Bremner.
This isn't to say these girls aren't competitive. In fact, Bremner said she would have wrestled and played on the boys' baseball team if her parents would have allowed it. She and Campbell both said if Panguitch had a football team, they would have tried out.
"We are very competitive," said Bennett. "Playing board games is not very fun."
Though Orton is arguably the premier female athlete in 1A this year — she is a distance champion in track, a cross-country individual winner and a stalwart on the basketball and volleyball teams — each member of the basketball team seems to know her place.
Tammi Bennett, the assistant coach, said the team offers a combination of determination, motivation and friendship.
"They push each other," she said. "They put in a lot of time. They have great parents and lots of support. They are never afraid and always up to a challenge since they were 9 years old. … They know their role and do it well and respect one another, on and off the court."
Piute coach Wade Westwood, whose team lost 58-28 to the Bobcats in last year's title game, admired the Bobcats' balance.
"You leave one girl to go guard another and that girl knocks down a shot," he said. "Every time we had a lapse or a turnover, they would score on us. They are definitely the best team I've been around. They are just solid. They run the whole game. They never look tired. They make wide-open shots. And they have a really good coach."
That fact was evident at the Panguitch Elementary School gym — where the girls alternate practice weeks with the boys' team — on a recent Monday afternoon.
It was all business as Barney put the girls through one complex drill after another. He said that every drill includes a goal, a number or a time.
"We have some goal attached to everything we do," he said. "We keep the intensity going in practice. These are competitive kids. We try to let them know that their toughest game is in practice. We split each team up and let them get after it."
Barney does not tolerate any player who gets a grade lower than a C. He has a 9 p.m. curfew during the season. And he is all about life lessons.
The coach has a unique perspective on that account. His day job involves teaching adult education at the Garfield County Jail, trying to help inmates get their diplomas.
"I see the other side of it," he said. "There is a big correlation between being active and engaged in a good cause, or having a lot of idle time to be engaged in something not so good."
So, with Tammi Bennett teaching many classes about life outside the world of high school, and Barney's emphasis on things other than basketball, success at Panguitch is reflected more in the kind of kids coming out of the school than the dozens of championship banners hanging from the gym rafters.
Barney marvels at watching the girls get up early in the morning for cross-country practice because they know they have volleyball practice in the afternoon.
"If you know how to work, you will be successful in life," he said. "That's the most important thing. It's not all about sports, but what sport is helping you accomplish. … We want the kids to be best on the court, in the office or as a mom."
The formula seems to be working so well that Quarnberg is looking for places in the foyer of the gym to add more trophy cases.
Twitter: @tribtomwharton —
Home of champions
• Panguitch, a school of about 150 students, has seen its girls win three straight track titles, two volleyball championships, two basketball titles and four of the past five cross-country titles.
• The Bobcats' closest basketball game last season was 21 points. They beat 3A schools Dixie and Pine View, institutions with six times the number of students.
• Panguitch is favored to win its third straight 1A girls' basketball title this season.