State Champ again
Jones makes history with title
By TODD FORREST Sentinel Writer

Just one week after taking his second consecutive Region 8AA crown, Union County High School Senior, Chris Jones traveled to Carrollton, on Saturday, to pick up the Class AACross Country State Championship by beating over 200 runners from all over Georgia. It took Jones just 16 minutes and 43 seconds to complete the 3.1 mile course. After taking the lead at the 1.5 mile mark, Jones never relinquished first place as he edged out Lovett's Harrison Dykes by just 1.51 seconds. With the victory, Jones becomes the first athlete in U.C.H.S. history to win two state titles. Jones' first state title came last spring in Track and Field in the 1600 meter event.

Jones was unaffected after a restart that caused everyone to have to walk back to the starting line and begin the race all over again and after one mile, Jones was in third place with a time at 5:01, just behind Wesleyan's Chris Duval and Brandon Ramsey. Jones took the lead going up a large hill at the halfway point of the race. Jones was still in the lead at the two-mile mark with a time of 10:30. Jones stretched his lead out to 50 meters with 800 meters to go.

Things got interesting with just 400 meters remaining, when Dykes got within 15 meters of the lead but Jones was able to hold him off coming down the final hill for a 1.51 second win. Wesleyan's Matt Hanlon finished third at 16:46:58. Ramsey and Duval fell out of the top five with their respective times of 16:51:90 and 17:06.