Dunning and Kattenbraker advance to sectionals
<span>The Chester High School cross country teams competed in the Class 1A Chester Regional on October 24 at the Randolph County Conservation Area course. </span>
<span>"Our kids were excited to run on our own course," said CHS coach Curt Gilpin. "It is known as one of the hardest courses around, but we are familiar with it and our kids seem to run well at home."</span>
<span>Chester's Taylor Dunning (15th, 21:54) and Jessica Kattenbraker (21st, 23:01), both sophomores, advanced to Saturday's Metro-East Lutheran Sectional in Edwardsville on the SIUE course.</span>
<span>Other Lady Yellow Jacket finishers were Shea Petrowske (44th, 24:35), Ellen Blechle (58th, 26:42), Whitney Gibbs (61st, 26:58), Hailey Asbury (75th, 30:26) and Elizabeth Soellner (76th, 30:40).</span>
<span>"I am quite proud of our two Lady Jackets who qualified for Sectionals this year," Gilpin said. "Taylor Dunning and Jessica Kattenbraker ran well at Regionals and earned a trip to the sectional meet.</span>
<span>"They had their first practice on Monday and will travel to Edwardsville a day early to see the course again and run on it."</span>
<span>The top-seven teams advanced to sectionals - Carterville (1</span><span>st</span><span>, 69), Du Quoin (2</span><span>nd</span><span>, 100), Okawville (3</span><span>rd</span><span>, 105), Pinckneyville (4</span><span>th</span><span>, 118); Nashville (5</span><span>th</span><span>, 126), Red Bud (6</span><span>th</span><span>, 133) and Steeleville (7</span><span>th</span><span>, 171).</span>
<span>Keri Burmester from Red Bud was the regional champion with her time of 19:24.</span>
<span>In the boys' race, Chester finished 13</span><span>th</span><span> with an average individual time of 20:30 and a team total time of 1:42:29. </span>
<span>Pinckneyville and Nashville tied for first place on the boys' side with 70 points. Utilizing the tie-breaking system, the lower ranking runners from both teams were compared and it all came down to the sixth place runners for each team. </span>
<span>Pinckneyville's sixth runner was Hayden Carter, who finished 33rd overall. Nashville's sixth runner, Landon Davis, finished 36th overall. </span>
<span>Carterville's Harrison Thomas was the regional champion with a time of 5:57.</span>
<span>Lucas Doiron led the Yellow Jackets with a 32nd overall finish (18:19), followed by Jason Schwartz (65th, 20:27), Joe Soellner (73rd, 20:55), Jack Weir (77th, 21:19), Mitchell Colonel (78th, 21:19) and Lance Bohnert (84th, 22:16).</span>
<span>"Lucas ran one of his better times and just missed out of qualifying for the top five individual finishes by six seconds," Gilpin said. "I was proud of his time and his effort."</span>
<span>The Yellow Jackets usual second runner, sophomore Josh Haberberger, fell in the woods during warm-ups and severely cut his hand.</span>
<span>He was eventually withdrawn from the race due to his instability.</span>
<span>"It was my call to withdraw Josh from the race," Gilpin said. "One of our parents is a nurse and she tended to Josh's injury. </span>
<span>"He was bandaged up pretty much and after he sat for a while I let him try to see if he could continue his warm up. After he attempted to exercise some more, he said he was somewhat dizzy and his complexion was very pale, so I pulled him from the competition."</span>