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Northside junior Andrew Harding finished second in the 1A state cross country meet Thursday at the Ivy Redmon Complex in Kernersville.

Harding covered the 5k course in 16:06.67 behind Christ the King of Huntersville junior Blake Nicholson, who posted a time of 15:36.84.

Harding shaved almost one minute off his time that won the East Regional last Saturday and beat his third place time last year by a minute and 14 seconds.

“I just wanted to run my best race and I did all I could,” Harding said. “I wanted to pass both runners in front of me during the second mile and I passed one. I’m happy with second place and it gives me confidence to know I can compete with the best in the state.”

Panthers senior and East Regional champion Kiele Scott finished 41^st in the girls competition with a time of 22:03. 122 runners competed in the girls meet, while the boys had 140.

Both Northside teams qualified for the 1A meet. The boys finished 16^th out of 17 teams while the girls were 13^th out of 14 teams.

Lejeune won the boys 1A state title, while Swain Co. prevailed on the girls side for the third straight season.

Seniors Mason Newman and Trent Proctor along with sophomore William Tretn Ipock and freshmen Luke Mirabella and Blake Wainwright also competed for the Panthers boys.

Juniors Emma Boyd and Ava Hedgepeth, sophomores Emrie Scott and Bailey Singleton along with freshman Heidi Bell completed the Northside girls scoring.

Washington sophomore Lydia Smith finished 56^th overall out of 133 runners in the 2A girls meet. Senior Hailey Broadwell, juniors Jessica Conner and Reagan Fisher along with sophomore Keelyn Plunkett and freshman Elizabeth Barrera also competed for the Pam Pack, who finished 14^th in the team standings.

“Our top five girls ran together as a pack and that helped us move up two spots from our ranking,” coach Dawn Landen said. “Lydia knocked a good 45 seconds off her time from last year and Jessica was about 30 seconds faster. It was a fabulous finish to our season.”

N.C. School of Science and Math from Durham won the 2A title.