Jackets' Cross Country runs well at Columbia and at County Lake

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The CHS Cross Country teams ran well last week at the Columbia Relays Wednesday, September 2 and at their first home meet of the year held at the Randolph County Lake Thursday, September 3.

At Columbia the relays were run with teams of three runners teaming up to complete a 4.5-mile race. Each runner on the three-person team ran 1.5 miles then passed the baton on to the next runner until all three runners had completed their leg of the race and the overall 4.5-mile course.

For the Chester girl's squad the Jackets fielded two separate teams. Hanna Knop, Emily Reid and Taylor Yankey comprised one team while Laura Liefer, Courtney Johnson and Jillian Yankey made up the other.

Knop (11.44), Reid (12.1) and Yankey (11.0) finished 6th overall with a cumulative time of 34:32.59. Liefer (11.72), Johnson (13.6) and Yankey (12.29) finished 14th overall with a cumulative time of 37:36. 97.

The winning girl's team was Freeburg who finished with a cumulative time of 28:36.72. The last team to finish was Granite City-E (46th) who turned in a time of 46:44.28. All total, there were 25 teams of three runners who competed.

In the boy's race Chester entered three teams of three runners. Devin Valleroy, Chad Koenegstein and Brant McMullin made up one team. Robert Imhof, Zach Sternberg and Brent Knop comprised another team while Brian Hartman, Terry Jones and Jeff Beers were the third team.

In the boy's division there were 36 separate teams. The winning team was Columbia with a combined time of 25:18.88. The last place team was Columbia-D (35th) with a time of 35:59.94.

Chester's first team to cross the finish line was Valleroy (8.91), Koenegstein (9.06) and McMillan (9.05) who finished 5th overall with a combined time of 27:01.91. Imhof (11.15), Sternberg (9.8) and Knop (10.24) crossed the line 23rd with a time of 23.31.11. Hartman (11.02), Jones (10.14) and Beers (10.9) were the 28th team to finish. Their cumulative time was 28:32.03.

Thursday at the Chester home meet the girls finished in 2nd place while the boys finished 4th. There were five teams who competed in the event.

In the girl's division the winner was Chaffee who had an overall score of 34 points. Chester was runner up with 50 points. In third place was Okawville with 82 points. Gibault came in fourth with 88 points and in last place was Marissa with 90 points. Steeleville and New Athens also had runners but did not field complete five-girl teams.

Liz Boschan of Chaffee was the overall winner with a time of 20:03. There were 37 runners in the girl's race.

Chester's Taylor Yankey finished 3rd overall with a time of 23:22. Hanna Knop also finished in the top-10 in 9th place. Her time was 24:52. Laura Liefer finished 12th (25:11) and Emily Reid finished 14th (25:29). Jillian Yankey was the 16th finisher with her 26:03 performance while Courtney Johnson (27th, 29:19), Morgan Colvis (33rd, 32:02) and Jenna Wingerter (36th, 35:12) rounded out the Lady jackets efforts.

In the boy's division there were 59 runners. The winner of the boy's race was Chris Kuester of Gibault. Kuester's winning time was 17:49.

The winner of the team competition was Marissa with a score of 30 points followed by New Athens (58), Steeleville (83), CHESTER (98), Gibault (124) and Okawville (133). Chaffee did not enter any male runners.

Devin Valleroy of Chester finished 4th overall with a time of 19:04. Brant McMullin also finished in the top-10 in 8th place with his time of 19:18. Brent Knop crossed the finish line in 27th place (21:28) and Zach Sternberg was right behind in 28th place (21:34).

Chad Koenegstein ran with a sore leg and finished 31st overall (22:10), and Terry Jones ran a good race finishing 24th overall with a time of 22:20. Brian Hartman also had a good day finishing 40th overall with his 23:58 performance.

Rounding out the Yellow Jacket line-up were Alec Weir, Robert Imhof, Jeff Beers and Miles Zhang. Weir finished 45th (25:25), Imhof finished 46th (25:34) and Beers finished 47th (25:35). Zhang completed the course in 27:21 in 53rd place.

It was a sunny day with a light wind. The temperature was 81 degrees and the trail was very hard and dry.