Rachel Kayl was driving about 80 mph when her SUV smashed into a vehicle carrying three teens to school on a dark December morning now almost two years ago, killing two of them.

Bridget Giere and Stephanie Carlson, both 16, died in the crash. A third student, Samantha Redden, who was driving them to Mounds View High School in her Chevrolet Equinox that morning, sustained significant injures.

On Thursday, just days before her trial was to start, Kayl admitted in Ramsey County District Court that she was driving approximately 30 miles over the 50 mph speed limit on County Road 96 when the fatal collision took place.

She also admitted that it was her extreme negligence that day that caused Giere and Carlson’s deaths, and left Redden to recover from a collapsed lung, significant blood loss, an injury to her spleen and a traumatic brain injury.

Redden, now a freshman at Century College, as well as both Giere and Carlson’s parents, listened from benches in the gallery as Kayl tearfully described what happened during the hearing.

She also entered guilty pleas to two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and one count of criminal vehicular operation.

The 33-year-old was driving eastbound on County Road 96 around 7:30 a.m. Dec. 1 2016 when her SUV collided with Redden’s westbound Chevrolet Equinox that was turning left onto Old Highway 10.

Her admission came after nearly two years of preparing to fight the charges at trial.

While an accident reconstruction with the Minnesota State Patrol determined after the crash that Kayl’s “excessive speed” that winter morning was the “primary cause” of the collision, her attorney argued otherwise in motions filed with the court.

Defense attorney Adam Johnson asserted that it was actually Redden’s failure to yield to Kayl, who had a green light at the time, that caused the collision.

As a part of her plea deal, the state agreed to drop the two manslaughter charges facing Kayl in her case.

She is expected to receive a roughly 10-year stayed sentence for the convictions when she is sentenced in mid-December. That means Kayl will be sent to prison only if she fails to abide by the terms of her probation, according to a spokesman with the Ramsey County attorneys’ office.

The judge also could order her to spend a year in jail.

Her attorney declined to comment Thursday on her decision to plead guilty.

“We intend on arguing our position at sentencing,” Johnson said.

Stephanie Carlson’s father, Steven Carlson, described the hearing afterward as “emotional” and cathartic.

“It was nice to have her take ownership of what she did and, you know, admit to everything we kind of knew since the beginning,” he said.” It’s hard to listen to though, and it’s too bad it took this long, but it’s nice that at least this part is over.”

He added that he and his wife, Catherine, were OK with the terms of Kayl’s plea deal, and said that while they don’t feel hatred toward her, they do believe she needs to be held accountable for her choices.

“We understand and acknowledge that Rachel and her family have their own burdens and sorrows, but we do not believe that exonerates her from the consequences of killing two young women and severely injuring a third in an action that was 100 percent preventable,” the couple wrote in a statement provided Thursday evening.

Giere’s parents, Marty and Marilee, said Kayl’s guilty plea offered them little solace, but added that they were struck by the remorse she showed in court.

“I just know if I had done that I would be very, very sorry and she never showed that until today,” Marilee Giere said.

Marty called the hearing “just one more step in the process … It never ends,” he said. “You think about her every day.”

Giere, Carlson and Redden had been close friends since grade school, the Carlsons said Thursday afternoon. The girls had been driving to school together ever since Redden got her license.

Hundreds of Mounds View High School students gathered in the days after the fatal wreck to grieve for their classmates.

Last fall, a memorial garden created in their honor was completed at North Heights Lutheran Church in Arden Hills, which is less than a mile from the crash scene.

Marilee Giere visits it all the time.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I just sit there and think about the girls. … It’s really for all young people who have passed. There’s a lot of them.”