The New Athens Yellowjackets and the Valle Catholic Warriors of nearby Sainte Genevieve, MO advanced in the opening night of the 48th annual Chester Invitational Boys Basketball Tournament.

In Monday night's opener, New Athens defeated Elverado 52-30.  The game marked the return of former Chester coach Mark Riley who is now the JV coach and varsity assistant at Elverado.

New Athens raced out to a 19-3 lead after the first quarter thanks to nine first quarter points from Vince Kiefer.

The Yellowjackets outscored Elverado 12-11 in the second and took a 31-14 lead the locker room at halftime.

In the third, New Athens' Tyler Womack scored nine of his game high 20 points in the third quarter to help the Yellowjackets take a 43-30 lead heading to the fourth.

In addition to Womack's 20 point performance, Kiefer finished with 12 hwile Cody Gaubatz finished with 10 points for New Athens.

Kyle Kempfer led Elverado with 15 points. Landry Arnett finished with five and Jake Lipe finished with four.  Kyle Whittington, Dalton Porter and Brian McClanahan each had two.

In the nightcap, the Valle Catholic Warriors made their first ever appearance in the Chester Invitational Tournament and defeated the Valley Park, MO Hawks 60-48.

Coach Dustin Wengert's Warriors jumped out to a 16-12 lead after the first quarter and extended their lead to 12 points at halftime after outscoring Valley Park 14-6 in the second quarter.

The Warriors led 30-18 at halftime.

Valle Catholic shifted their offense into high gear in the third as they outscored the Hawks 21-11 and took a 51-29 lead heading to the fourth.

In the fourth, the Hawks made a run at Valle Catholic but couldn't get the lead down to single digit.  Valley Park outscored the Warriors 19-9 in the fourth but Valle left Colbert Gym with a 60-48 decision.

Bryan Kertz led Valle with 14 points while Kellen Bader finished with 10 points.

Jason Blum (9), Michael Loida (6), Alex Stoll (5), Michael Greminger (4), Jared Bruns (4), Garrett Koch (3), Christian Moulton (3) and Thomas Hermann (2) also scored for Valle.

Valley Park's Josh Ramesy led all scorers with a game high 24 points. Majuan Bates finished with 15 for the Hawks.

Ben Herbst (6), Joe Anselmo (2) and Jeremy Sinton (1) also scored for Valley Park.

On Thursday night, in one championship semi final, Valle Catholic will play New Athens at 6pm.

Friday night, in one consolation semifinal, Valley Park will play Elverado at 6:00pm.

The opening round concludes Tuesday night.  The defending CIT champs, the Saxony Lutheran Crusaders will play the Dongola Demons at 6pm followed by Marissa-Coulterville playing the host Chester Yellow Jackets at 7:30pm.