Chester football ready to explode
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[For many sports fans, it's their favorite time of the year. As summer turns into fall, fans of professional, college and high school football get ready to follow their favorite team. Locally, that means anticipation is building as another great year of Chester Yellow Jacket football is about to begin! Fans have had a chance to check out the team at the midnight practice and the soup game scrimmage and are looking forward to the start of the regular season.
Last year's varsity squad finished with an overall record of 8-2. The only losses were to Black Diamond conference champions Johnston City and to Hardin Calhoun in the first round of the playoffs. While the team did lose 14 seniors from that great squad, several underclassmen made their marks last season. Offensively Clint Cole, Stephen Roth, Zane Wallace and Joel Clendenin picked up some key rushing yards. Defensively Brian Bindel, Tyler Chandler, Zach Murdach, Jordan Wetzel and Jake Cowan all recorded big tackles. Chester's roster this season will feature many returning players with varsity experience, plus others ready to move up from last year's excellent freshman and sophomore teams. Those two squads only suffered one loss apiece last year.
This year's schedule will be the second trip through the Black Diamond Conference for the Yellow Jackets. Chester makes five appearances at home. Action starts on Aug. 26 against Vienna. Sept. 9 Carmi comes to town, then the rematch with Johnston City is on Sept. 23. Homecoming is set for Sept. 30 against Elverado-Trico, then Senior Night is Oct. 14 against Fairfield. Away games are Sept. 2 at Sesser, Sept. 16 at Christopher, Oct. 7 at Eldorado and Oct 21 at Hamilton County. All games are on Friday nights with kickoffs at 7:00