It was easy being green on Saturday night as the Edina girls swimming and diving team put an end to a five-year drought by winning the Class AA state title for the first time since 2004.

With a team score of 247.5 points, Edina held off second-place Eden Prairie — the team that defeated the Hornets by a single point for the Section 6AA title one week earlier — and third-place Stillwater. The Eagles amassed 223 points, while the Ponies logged 220 points.

The victory brings to an end a run that included back-to-back runner-up finishes to Stillwater the last two seasons as an exuberant Hornets squad raised aloft the championship trophy for the fifth time since 2000.

"It's been a long time for us," Edina head coach Jeff Mace said. "Our goal at the beginning of the season was to perform well, but we didn't know if we had enough to win a title. We just wanted to perform well."

Performing well was exactly what the Hornets did, as the team staked claim to the top spot early in the meet and held on to a sizable advantage all night despite not winning a single event.

Edina's focus was evident from start to finish as individual accolades took a back seat to the prospect of team glory.

Junior Nikki Larson, who qualified for All-American status with a second-place finish of 1 minute, 50.13 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle, summed up her accomplishment in the grand scheme by saying, "It feels good and I'm sure it'll sink in later, but for now, I'm more focused on trying for that team title."

Larson's 200 finish was one of her two second-place, All-American results as she matched the feat in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 50.95 seconds later in the meet.

All told, Edina claimed six All-American honors on the night with five second-place results and one third-place finish.

The meet began with the Hornets' 200-yard medley relay team of Madeleine Eden, Olivia Anderon, Paige Haller and Adrienne Hebb claiming the first of such laurels with the No. 2 time of 1:46.61 in the event, before Eden earned herself an individual All-American honor with a runner-up time of 2:03.56 200-yard individual medley. Heather Laedtke claimed her All-American nod with a second-place turn in the 100-yard breaststroke with a swim of 1:04.01.

Edina's 200-yard freestyle relay quartet of Hebb, Laedtke, Eden and Larson came in third, six one-hundredths of a second behind second-place Stillwater. The girls still snared All-American honors with a time of 1:36.45.

"The kids really did well," Mace said. "Stillwater and Eden Prairie were excellent opponents and they brought out the best in us."

It was a busy night for Edina in general as the Hornets were represented in nine of 12 championship heats during the state finals.

Laedtke placed fifth in the 200 IM with an All-American consideration time of 2:06.11, Edina's lone diver, Yasmeen Almog, placed sixth off the 1-meter board with a score of 385.65 points and Haller took seventh in the 100-yard butterfly in 58.63.

Nearly clinching the title for Edina was the 2-3-4 finish of Laedtke, Anderson and Eden in the 100 breaststroke — the second-to-last event of the night. Laedtke's All-American effort was followed by the All-American consideration swims of Anderson (1:04.05) and Eden (1:04.25), respectively, to give the Hornets a 221.5-189 lead over Eden Prairie heading into the concluding 400-yard freestyle relay.

For there to be a reversal of fortune, the Eagles would have needed to win the 400 relay and Edina would have to be disqualified. Niether would come to pass as the Hornets' foursome of Larson, Laedtke, Haller and Emily Flack finished sixth (3:36.04) to Eden Prairie's runner-up result to lock up the Class AA championship.

It was made official minutes later to the delirious shrieks of joy from Edina's victorious conglomerate, who after taking congratulations from both Stillwater and Eden Prairie, proudly claimed the first-place hardware.

"You can't control what other teams do," Mace said. "We knew that every one of our athletes had to put their best performance on the board. It's a great group of girls and we were just trying to do the best we can."

With Hebb being the only senior to secure points for this year's Class AA title-holders, the possibility of another run of state championships was not lost on Mace.

"We're fairly young," he said. "We've got a good nucleus, let's put it that way."