Chareya Smith can’t believe it’s gone by so fast.

Tyonna Willingham is happy to have been a part of it.

The best four-year run in Athens Drive’s girls’ basketball history is nearing its end.

“It really doesn’t seem like four years,” said Smith, who along with Willingham are the only two seniors on the Jaguars’ roster. “It just went by so quick.”

Since Smith joined the team as a freshman, and Willingham joined before her junior year, the Jaguars have experienced success never before known to the program.

Heading into this week’s Tri-Eight tournament, Athens has won 88 games during the last four seasons. The Jaguars have won three conference championships, one conference tournament and advanced to the state tournament’s regionals.

Prior to 2004-05, none of those things had happened in school history, which dates to 1978.

“When I got here, they had four winning seasons,” said Danehower, now in his seventh season at Athens. “To put together a string of successive playoff appearances is really beginning a new tradition we’ve established here. And the younger kids that have come in have continued that with guidance from the older kids.”

In the 10 years preceding Smith’s arrival, the Jaguars won a total of 68 games and they made the playoffs four times. Once, they were conference runners-up. They had no back-to-back winning seasons and went to the second round of the playoffs once.

Athens has since had five straight winning seasons and three straight trips to the second round of the playoffs.

Neither senior knew the specifics of the past, but they knew it wasn’t that great. And they’ve known they’re a part of something special because of Danehower.

“You can see it in his eyes,” said Willingham, who’s averaging 14.6 points, 4.2 assists and 4.1 steals per game this year. “He just gets so excited and so happy for us.”

The turnaround, Danehower said, started the year before Smith enrolled at Athens when two new players moved from out of state and a couple more transferred from Southeast Raleigh.

“It was like all of a sudden, we were really, really good,” Danehower said.

And Smith helped push it to another level.

Strong on the perimeter, solid handling the ball and fearless inside, Smith powered her way to conference player of the year as a freshman and the team to a school-record 24 wins.

When Willingham transferred from Cary High before the 2006-07 school year, that lifted Athens to still another level. With the addition of Willingham — who is always a threat to penetrate, has a jump shot good enough to keep defenses honest and is a terror on the defensive end — the Jaguars enjoyed their best season ever. They won a school-record 28 games, won the conference regular-season and tournament titles and went to the regionals.

“It was incredible,” Willingham said. “We had the thing on the wall and we kept X-ing off wins, just seeing how many more games until the state championship. It was probably the greatest thing ever.”

The Jaguars came back looking to do it again this season, but the year got off to a shaky start.

They were 5-5 through their first 10 games and beset by injuries and trying to find ways to infuse the team’s youth with the old guard.

Smith missed the first five games of the season while recovering from an offseason ACL injury, and Willingham had a couple nicks and bruises that forced her to sit out a few games.

After narrowly losing to Garner in the GlaxoSmithKline Holiday Invitational, then outlasting McDowell County in overtime in the tournament’s consolation game, the Jaguars have been on a tear.

“I knew we could do it, but we needed to get stronger,” said Smith, who’s averaging 12.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. “With me being out, I was getting depressed, getting all fat. I was kind of worried.”

Athens shredded the Tri-Eight and finished 14-0 in the league for the second year in a row. They won all 14 games by double figures and by an average of 38.1 points per game.

“I really have a good feeling about this group,” Danehower said. “We’ve definitely hit our stride.”

Now that the postseason is here, Smith and Willingham are dialed in and focused on adding one last first to the list of accomplishments.

“I’m going to be like every other player — championships,” Willingham said. “That’s what we’re after.”