Short-handed Jr. Jackets run well at Rend Lake

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Chester Grade School Jr. Jackets Cross Country Team competed at the 2008 Rend Lake Invitational last Saturday October 11. In spite of having only 11 of the 25 members on the team available for the meet, the Jr. Jackets turned in some pretty impressive times and McKenzie Rucker, Taylor Yankey and Hunter Howie finished in the top-five of their respective races.

McKenzie Rucker competed against 74 other girls in the Junior Varsity Division and finished third. She completed the 1.2-mile race in just 7:40.

In the girls Varsity Division Taylor Yankey finished fifth out of 119 other runners and accomplished a personal-best time of 7:03.

Hunter Howie placed fourth out of 115 boys who competed in the Junior Varsity Division. Howie's time was only 12:20 for the 1.8-mile event.

Cody Mileur, a 7th grader, ran in the Varsity Division and finished a very respectable 25th place. His time was 11:42 and there were 131 runners in that event. Garrett Alms finished the Varsity race in 14:13.

Other Junior Varsity Boys who competed included Lucas Hartman (13:30), Cody Demster (14:75), Logan Hormann (15:47), Joey Schneier (17:58) and Cody Brant (20:32).

Krista Gant ran the JV girl's race in 9:15 and Jenna Wahl completed the 1.2-mile course in 12:24. Holly Hartman turned in a time of 8:43 in the Girl's Varsity race.

The Jr. Jackets were short-handed at Rend Lake due to a Jr. High Band performance at the Southern Illinois University Homecoming Parade. Most of the rest of the team was in Carbondale that day with the band. The 13 runners who could make the trip did a fantastic job of representing CGS at the meet.