LAKEWOOD - The relative ease with which Kristina Willis captured the pole vault masked the tremendous pressure The Classical Academy junior felt in the event.

After all, perhaps the most impressive streak at the state meet was at stake.

Her victory marked the sixth consecutive 3A girls’ pole vault for her family. Her oldest sister Andrea won three straight for the Titans from 2014-16. Middle sister Erika won in ’17-18. And now — with great relief to Kristina — she claimed the ’19 prize Friday.

“It’s really cool. I’ve had lots of pressure on me the last couple of years, doing this. It’s cool to finally be able to do this,” Kristina said during a rain delay that was called just minutes after she clinched the title, but before she could continue to raise the bar and challenge the records left by her sister.

“I knew I could do it, but you haven’t done it until you actually go and do it. So it’s really exciting.”

PHOTOS: 2019 state track & field championships day 2

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She made it look quite simple. Her opening jump of 10 feet thrust her immediately into the top five of the 16-jumper field. After two more successful attempts the competition was whittled to two, and she secured the title at 11-3 on her second try. She later moved up to 12-1.

But she didn’t do it alone.

Between attempts she would go to the side and confer with Erika, who just finished her freshman year as a member of the track and field team at Air Force.

Erika was going to celebrate the end of finals and her first year at the academy by escaping on a trip with friends, but she nixed that plan when she realized it would interfere with her chance to attend the state meet at Jeffco Stadium.

“I really wanted to be here for her,” Erika said. “I knew when my older sister, Andrea, helped me it was really good; and it meant a lot to me personally, too.

“We don’t want to put a bunch of pressure on each other. We said, ‘Do your best, don’t focus on the title.’”

Andrea, who redshirted this spring at Kansas after advancing to nationals in the indoor season, sent a Jayhawks shirt that Kristina wore during warmups.

“She’s been so successful, I feel honored to be able to wear her shirt,” Kristina said.

“They help me so, so much. I could not do it without them.”

All of this began during the 2008 Olympics, when Steve Willis saw a human interest piece on a Russian pole vaulter who took up the discipline after becoming too tall to compete in gymnastics. Knowing his daughters’ background in gymnastics, and seeing how tall Andrea — then 10 — was already growing, he began to look into it.

“It took us a couple years to get her into that,” said Steve, a 1987 Air Force graduate. “Then they all kind of followed after they all retired out of gymnastics.”

Kristina, whose athletic background included soccer, basketball, gymnastics, swimming and track, didn’t pick up pole vault until two years ago.

She’d like to continue to follow her sisters’ path and pole vault in college.

“It never gets old because there’s always so much you can always improve on because it’s such a technical sport,” said Kristina, whose winning mark of 12-1 left her 13 inches ahead of Coal Ridge’s Phoebe Young in the meet but well behind Erika’s state meet record of 12-9 and Andrea’s Colorado prep record of 13-9. “It’s just always so fun knowing you can always do something better.”

In other words, look out for a seventh straight title in 2020 — no pressure, or anything.

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