By JEREMY HALL

jeremy.hall@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — When workers at Mt. Vernon Township High School hang the school’s latest state championship banner, the description will read simply, “State Champ Margo XC.”

The first-name-only reference is apt for a runner who over the last three years has earned her place among the school’s all-time greatest athletes. Not that she needed it to cement her place in the school’s record books, but junior runner Margo Richardson did so anyway on Saturday by winning the Illinois High School Association Class 2A State Cross Country Meet.

The state championship was the first in a tradition-rich history of cross country running at MVTHS. It also was just the second female individual state championship by a Mt. Vernon athlete in school history, after Amber Green won a swimming state title two years ago.

Richardson outkicked freshman Jessie Wynn of Peoria Notre Dame High School over the last mile of the three-mile race held at Peoria’s Detweiller Park, taking the lead for good during the homestretch after leading wire-to-wire in her postseason runs before Saturday.

“I just decided to take off right after the two-mile [mark] and I stayed in the lead, luckily, and this girl [Wynn] was definitely gaining on me,” Richardson said.

“I could hear the people screaming on the sidelines, ‘She’s gaining on you. She’s gaining on you.’ I just gave it my all and sprinted hard across the finish line and about fell over. I was so tired.”

Richardson crossed the finish line 17 minutes, 41 seconds after starting the biggest race of her life, holding off Wynn by two seconds. Richmond-Burton High School runner Kristen Levi finished third at 17:49.

“It was a day when everything worked out,” said Lady Rams cross country coach Connie Harre-Blair. “Her race was good.”

Richardson finished third at the Class 2A state meet as a sophomore and trimmed three seconds off the time she posted at Peoria last November.

“It was crazy,” she said. “After I crossed the finish line everybody came up to me. Some were crying; everybody wanted to talk to me, hug me and interview me.”

Richardson last year equaled the best finish by a Mt. Vernon runner at the state meet, sharing the distinction with Everett Whiteside, who finished third at the state meet in 1987.

On Saturday, she sprinted ahead of her predecessors in a sport that has seen its fair share of quality runners over the years. Richardson’s two medals at the state meet matches the effort of Summer Owens, who placed 15th and 11th in 2001 and 202, respectively, for the Lady Rams. Whiteside finished 15th a year before his third-place finish and is the only male runner from Mt. Vernon to earn two medals at the state meet.

Richardson also became the first Southern Illinois runner to win a girls state title since Trenton Wesclin’s Susan Gibson in 1995. Runners from the southern portion of the state have not had the success of their northern Illinois counterparts at Peoria in November over the years. Since the start of the girls state meet in 1979, only Gibson, who won three state titles, East St. Louis’ Marques Sanders (1989) and Sparta’s Becky Garrett (1990) had won representing Southern Illinois schools before Richardson’s championship run on Saturday.

In Richardson, Harre-Blair has coached her first state champion in 30 years since taking on the job of girls cross country coach at MVTHS. The Lady Rams entered the season with just eight runners, but managed a regional team championship this fall.

Along with Richardson, the Rams’ Cambell Walters — a senior — won a medal for all-state designation after finishing 21st in the Class 2A boys state meet.

The two were escorted through town on Saturday evening to a reception for them at Changnon Gymnasium on the MVTHS campus.

MVTHS Superintendent Terry Milt said Richardson has earned her place among the school’s all-time greatest athletes.

“Outstanding young athlete,” said Milt. “Dedicated and hard working. Her diligence and hard work paid off in a state championship. For a high school athlete to win a state title, that’s reaching the pinnacle.”