NEWVILLE - Sullivan County's Paige Jordan became the first female Griffin to claim a cross-country state medal in 50 years at the PIAA, Class A Girls Championships Saturday.

Jordan (20:13) took 19th overall to finish in the top 25.

"It feels good," Jordan said. "It's just a happy environment, and everybody who's just been supporting me, and it just makes it really fun and happy."

Jordan was 33rd at the mile, then moved up five spots at the halfway point.

With a mile to go she was 25th, then got up to 22nd with 1000 meters left.

"I just wanted to try my hardest," she said. "I knew what I was ranked, so I was trying to stick around where I was ranked, and I did."

She went out at a controlled pace so as not to get too caught up.

"I didn't want to put expectations that weren't reasonable, so I figured that was a spot that was reasonable."

It helped that the fans were telling her where she was doing the race.

"I knew I was close, and I can just keep going more and more to pick off more people," said Jordan.

Jordan had one of the best feelings when she crossed that finish line.

"I was really proud," she remarked. "I'm proud of everyone cheering me on, and everything just made me really happy."

Addisyn Templin (21:39) was 84th, Adylynn Thibodeault (22:32) came in 137th, and freshman Kara Jordan (23:14) came in 176th.

In the Class A boys race Calen Sweigart (17:16) was 40th overall, with Carter Blasi (17:32) taking 57th.

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