Lady Jackets finish fifth at second Chester Invite Kattenbraker earns Top 10 medal

The Chester High School girls cross country team welcomed six schools for the second half of its Chester Invitational Thursday, Oct, 8, at the Randolph County Conservation Area.

A total of 35 runners from seven schools participated in the 3-mile race, including Chester, Christ Our Rock Lutheran High School of Centralia, Mascoutah, Okawville, New Athens, Christopher, and Steeleville.

All schools except New Athens and Christopher qualified for team scores. (Schools have to field at least five runners to qualify for a team score.)

Okawville won the event with 42 points, followed by Mascoutah (2nd, 47); Christ Our Rock Lutheran (3rd, 48); Steeleville (4th, 87); and Chester (5th, 121).

Medals were presented to the Top 10 varsity finishers and the top five freshman-sophomore runners.

The overall varsity winner was Sarah McKowen, a freshman from Christ Our Rock, who turned in a time of 21:32. She also had a winning pace of 7:1 per mile.

Other Top 10 varsity finishers were Kylie Eversgerd, a junior from Christ Our Rock (2nd, 22:21, 7:27); Cindy Snyder, a junior from Okawville (3rd, 22:36, 7:32); Chloe Tape, a junior from Okawville (4th, 22:53, 7:38); and Emeline Rincker, a junior from Christ Our Rock (5th, 24:31, 8:11).

Rounding out the Top 10 were Morgan Creamer, a senior from Steeleville (6th, 25:37, 8:33); Grace Lauer, a junior from New Athens (7th, 25:56, 8:39); Hailey Cortinas, a senior from Mascoutah (8th, 25:58, 8:40); Sydney Yosonavich, a senior from Christopher (9th, 26:32, 8:51); and Josie Kattenbraker from Chester (10th, 27:03. 9:01).

The Lady Jackets were led by Kattenbraker. Fellow senior Hannah Blechle finished a minute and a half behind Kattenbraker in 11th place (28:18, 9:26).

Chester's third finisher was senior Madison Kribs, who turned in a time of 28:53 and a pace of 9:38 per mile.

Senior Amelia Shemonic finished 16th with a time of 30:13 and a pace of 10:05 minutes per mile. Katie Shinabargar, a senior, finished in 18th place (33:00, 11:00). Senior Melody Colonel rounded out the Lady Jacket scoring, finishing 18th (41:49, 13:57).

The top 5 freshmen-sophomore runners were Mascoutah freshman Addison Heard (1st, 22:09); Annabelle Kowalski, a Mascoutah sophomore (2nd, 22:45); Isabella Hart, another Mascoutah sophomore (3rd, 22:59); Okawville freshman Lydia Luechtefeld (4th, 23:41); and Okawville freshman, Adysen Harre (5th, 24:44).

The Lady Jackets still have the 2020 Black Diamond Conference Meet Thursday, Oct. 15, at Vienna and the 2020 IHSA Regional Meet Saturday, Oct. 24, at Marissa.

Paul Stallman served as the Official Starter and Mary Stallman of Alias Race Management was the Official Scorekeeper.