Nikki Garns competes well at state championship

Greencastle-Antrim freshman Nikki Garns competed well in Saturday’s PIAA State Cross County Championships.

On a cold morning the Blue Devil athlete claimed 62nd place out of 282 runners from throughout the state who ran the Hershey course. Garns clocked a 20:12. The winning time was 18:42.

Garns was 10th in last week’s District 3-AAA Championship meet, good for a district medal and state meet berth. She ran a 19:40 on that day on the same course. Had she been able to meet that pace she would have improved her place by about 30. Her district time earned her the distinction of being one of 15 runners in the district meet to meet the national silver standard and being named a national elite.

The race ended Garns’ first high school cross country season where she was unbeaten in dual meets and led the Blue Devil girls’ team to a divisional championship. Garns was a two-sport athlete in the fall. She was also a setter on the G-A junior varsity volleyball team.