COLLINSVILLE – Alton junior track sprinter Jeanea Epps has been playing a key role for the Redbird girls the past couple of seasons.
Epps runs in the 100 and 200 meters and plays a role on the 4×100 and 4×200 relay teams; in Friday’s Collinsville Invitational girls track meet, Epps won the 100 in 12.31 seconds, the 200 in 25.85 seconds, ran the third leg of the 4×100 relay team that finished second in 49.01 seconds, 29-hundredths of a second behind first-place Belleville West’s team and ran the leadoff leg of the third-place 4×200 team in 1:46.95.
Epps began running track in sixth grade, missing her sixth-grade year with a broken ankle suffered the day before her first meet, returning to the seventh-grade team the next year. “We were at a track practice and the facility we were in wasn’t up to par to be practicing,” Epps recalled. “It was just a bad fall.”
As far as goals Epps set for herself as far as the 2018 season goes, she set a goal of making to the IHSA Class 3A state track meet in Charleston (set for the weekend of May 17-19) in all four of her events; Epps reached last year’s state meet in the 4×100 (reaching the final with the team, finishing eighth in the event), the 100 (where she did not qualify for the Saturday final) and the 4×200 relay (where the Redbirds did not advance to the final). “I want to make new PRs (personal records) this season,” Epps said.
“It feels great” to be a part of the Redbirds, Epps said. “I want to break records for my school so the kids who are coming up will have more goals to look and make a great name for Alton to get us on the map.”
