From the beginning of the season, it appeared throwers were in short supply for the Auburn Mountainview girls track and field team this season.

Then along came a girl from Texas.

Marissa Paopao has emerged from the circle for the Lions this spring, earning district berths in both her specialities, the shot put and discus.

“From the first day, we could recognize that she was going to be pretty good,” said Lions coach Joel MacDougall. “Then she tapered a bit, but she’s coming alive now.”

Paopao hopes to follow Christi Ometu as a state-class performer.

Ometu placed sixth in the shot put with a toss of 37-3 3/4 and 16th in the discus with a throw of 80-10 at state last year. But Ometu graduated, leaving the Lions looking for answers to fill the ring.

Enter Paopao, 17, a junior transfer student from James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas.

Paopao, who grew up in California before attending high school in Texas for the past two years, immediately made an impact for the Lions. In her first meet at Kent-Meridian, she recorded a personal best in the shot put with a throw of 34 feet.

Then last Saturday, Paopao surpassed her best toss with a second-place throw of 35-10 1/2 feet at the Western Cascade Conference/South Puget Sound League 3A sub-district meet in Sumner.

Paopao also qualified for this weekend’s West Central District 3A meet by capturing the sub-district discus title with a heave of 115-4 feet. She posted a personal-best toss of 117-10 on May 6.

“She’s a great kid,” McDougall said. “It’s nice to have that kind of kid in the program.”

Paopao has excelled behind the coaching of MacDougall and Theresa Haynes, a former heptathlete.

For inspiration, she looks to her aunt Emily.

Emily Dole was the youngest member of the USA Team in 1976, a season in which she finished fifth in the U.S. Olympic Trials, just missing the top-three cut to make the Summer Games in Montreal. In 1980, Dole, who was attending Cal State Long Beach on a scholarship at the time, again narrowly missed the cut for the Olympic team.

Dole later gained fame for her roles in movies such as “Personal Best” with Mariel Hemingway and “Son in Law” with Pauly Shore, as well as her performances as wrestler Mt. Fiji in the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

To this day, Paopao stays close to her aunt. She regularly writes letters to Dole, who his living in an Orange County, Calif., nursing home.

“I just love her,” Paopao said. “She’s my inspiration.”