Batavia junior Avery Hacker once again proved she could run with the state’s best girls cross country runners at sectionals.

At the Class 3A state meet Saturday, she beat almost all of them with her best race ever.

Hacker took second with a personal-best 16 minutes, 14.0 seconds for 3.0 miles after a fourth-place finish at the Lake Park Sectional Nov. 1 in a then previous-best 16:39.6.

“This is a really exciting race for me,” said Hacker, who became the Bulldogs’ third multiple top-25, all-state finisher. “I was just trying to stay with the girls and then move the second half and then the last mile moving to get where I was capable of.”

Hacker ran the second-fastest time in program history and tied the highest state finish by 2022 graduate Katrina Schlenker, whose school-record 16:07.

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