World junior cross country team member Andrew Gardner ends up with Huskies...

The tweet from University of Washington head track coach Greg Metcalf, which posted Wednesday afternoon said it all:

With that, Mead HS senior Andrew Gardner (left/photo by Paul Merca), one of the country's top high school distance runners this season, will head to the University of Washington, instead of the US Air Force Academy, as numerous sources had announced previously.

Gardner has personal bests of 1:54.27 in the 800, 4:09.71 over 1600, and 8:59.83 at 3200 meters.

This indoor season, Gardner finished fourth in the 2 mile at the Brooks PR meet at the Dempsey in Seattle, running an indoor personal best of 9:06.52.  He finished sixth at the USA junior cross country championships, running 24:53 over 8k in St. Louis, and nabbed the last spot on the USA's world cross country championship team.

At the world championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland in late March, Gardner finished 42nd in a time of 23:30 on a course that was slightly short of 8k.

He also represented Team USA at the NACAC cross country championships in January, where he finished ninth over 6k, running 19:26 in Mandeville, Jamaica.

Gardner joins two other incoming freshmen who competed in Bydgoszcz this fall at the UW--North Central HS standout Katie Knight from Spokane, and Glacier Peak HS/Snohomish runner Amy-Eloise Neale.  Knight was 28th for Team USA, while Neale was 21st for Great Britain.  Neale earned a team bronze medal, as Great Britain finished third behind Kenya and Ethiopia.