“I’m so excited,” Kosek said about taking third. “This is not really what I expected the outcome to be, honestly. I was hoping for it, but to be third is so exciting, especially in such a competitive field.”

4-time state champion Virginia Knauss out of Saucon Valley was in her race, running a meet best 17:48, while Kosek finished in 18:45.

“I’d been saying all week it was probably going to be Virginia then Reese Miller,” explained Kosek. “Then I kept saying, after that the next five anything could happen, so to find myself in that third place position, behind those two girls who have run such strong seasons, was super exciting.”

Kosek was fourth at the mile in 5:25, a hair faster than normal, and claimed third place at the 2-mile. She was 16 seconds ahead of the nearest runner with 1.1 miles to go, but 14 seconds behind silver.

“Everybody kept telling me to go catch second place,” Kosek remarked. “It was funny because she was quite a ways away at that point, but I really just kept focused on her and just running hard. I was really scared - personally I felt like I didn’t have much left in the tank going around that 4K mark. I just kept thinking the next person behind me might have run a bit smarter race and at the end anything can happen. I’ve just got to keep running strong.”

She ended up taking third by 24 seconds and was just one of 10 runners to break 19 minutes on the day between all three girls’ races.

“I thought I had a pretty good kick today,” said Kosek. “I could tell from the cheering I thought pretty much had third place in the bag. I didn’t think there’s anybody super close behind me, but I was just running as fast as I could. It’s really hard on such a long straight stretch.”

The two girls in front of her are seniors making Kosek the highest finisher returning for next year.

Right now, though, she’s going to focus on running at NIKE Cross Regionals before moving into indoor track and field.

“I have some really big goals,” Kosek said.

In the Class AA boys’ race Henry Whitney (17:32) was 44th and Max Macias (17:53) came in 73rd.

Whitney was 26th at the mile, just one spot off the medals, but slowly fell back.

He was 37th at the 2-mile, and 40th with 1,000 meters to go.

Macias was 58th at the mile and fell as far back as 76th at the 2-mile, before moving up three spots in the final 1.1 miles.