East St. Louis shines in girls conference meet
O'Fallon's Patten goes 5-8 in high jump
But with the Class AA Marion Sectional slated for Friday, the Flyerettes weren't the only team with reason to be encouraged.
East St. Louis, winning seven of 18 events, had 177 1/2 points. Second-place Edwardsville had 128, followed by Belleville East (106), O'Fallon (92) and Belleville West (72). Rounding out the team standings were Alton (47), Granite City (34 1/2) and Collinsville (21).Flyerettes senior Ronecia Nash, the defending state champion in the 200-meter dash, didn't run in that event at Collinsville, but she edged Belleville West junior Yolanda Suggs to win the 100.
Other individual champions for East St. Louis were Brittney Brimmage in the long jump and triple jump, Kourtney Chism in the shot put and discus, Timeka Watkins in the 100-meter hurdles and Ebone Washington in the 300-meter hurdles.
"We were able to get it in and not have to come back, that's No. 1," said East St. Louis coach Nino Fennoy, who was concerned about the weather. "We competed well and we had a never-give-up attitude from event to event.
"We had some seniors step up, like Kourtney Chism in the discus and the shot and Brittney Brimmage in the triple jump and long jump. We've got to have some people to go along with what Ronecia Nash can do.
"In the 300-meter hurdles, we had a senior (Washington) win it and made the freshman (Watkins) run harder. In the 100-meter hurdles, the freshman won it and the senior was second. This was the last quiz - everything else is a test and we'll go from there."
Belleville East got a pair of victories from freshmen, with Maria Effinger winning the 1,600-meter run and Siobhan Steppe winning the 3,200.
"We always look to do better, but our times in all of the relays were good," said East coach Bryan Mitchell. "We've run better, but the competition at conference is very tough.
"Roneisha Frye was fourth in the 100-meter hurdles, but she's capable of finishing better. She didn't have her best day, but hopefully she'll do better at the sectional.
"Our distance girls ran very well and our third freshman, Mackenzie Otten, finished second in the 800. They're all top-notch runners and it's a privilege to coach them."
Belleville West, meanwhile, won the 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 relays while Suggs placed first in the 200. Suggs placed second to Alton's Jessica Lenior in the 400.
"We had a pretty good day," said West coach Paul James. "The 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 relays both won and ran excellent times, which gives us a trial run for next week. The 4 x 400, even though we got disqualified at the end, would have finished sixth, but we still got a state qualifying time.
"I thought Suggs did well in the 100, 200 and 400. She's bothered a little bit by shin splints, but she still had a big day. She's not 100 percent right now, but I think she'll be ready next week. She gave Nash a pretty good race in the 100 and got beat, but they're one-two in the state in terms of time. She won the 200 against a good athlete in (East St. Louis') Chelsey Robinson and finished second in the 400 in another great field.
"We had a good day out of Kaitlyn Hill in the shot put - she finished third and had a personal best of 35-9 1/2. Chalsea Ewing wasn't quite as good in the long jump as we had hoped, but she still got fourth place."
O'Fallon junior Elaine Patten won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 8 inches.
"We had some really good performances," said O'Fallon coach Neil James. "In the long jump, we had a sophomore, (Sarah) Rautio, who had done it just a few times, but she went 16-6 and got third. A freshman, (Erica) Cain, had a PR (personal record) of 5-4 in the high jump and tied for second place.
"Elaine was a little sick today, but to go 5-8 on an off day, that's pretty impressive. We were missing two kids that are big in our relays and other people had to step up. Without them, we knew it was going to be tough for us to beat East or Edwardsville.
I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Coach (Ryan) Massey and I sat down at lunch today and figured out point-wise how we might do and we were within one point of that. There were some surprises, good and bad, but if we get those two kids back, we'll be ready next Friday."
Individual winners for Edwardsville were Lia Saunders in the 800 and Chelsea Cole in the pole vault. The Tigers also won the 4 x 400 and 4 x 800 relays.
