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Abbie Cline signs to play softball at the next level

Published

13 years ago

November 15, 2011

Abbie Cline signs a letter of intent to play softball at Austin Peay

Abbie Cline, the 17 year old daughter of Joe and Teresa Cline, signed Saturday, November 12 to play softball at Austin Peay State University in the fall of 2012. Austin Peay is a Division I university that is 45 minutes away from Nashville, Tennessee.

At Austin Peay, Cline plans to major in Health and Human Performance with a concentration in Health. After her four years, she would like to go to Physical Therapy graduate school and then pursue a career in Physical Therapy.

Cline has been playing softball for 12 years and is midway through her senior year at Gillespie High School where her final high school softball season will start in the spring. Cline, who has played every position except pitcher, stars as the catcher for the Lady Miner softball team.

Abbie Cline hitting a homerun in the 2011 season.

Cline started out on the local recreation team under the direction of Bill Halpin. For 8 years, Abbie played on Gillespie B&B and played a variety of positions before moving on to the Illinois Sluggers in 2006. The Sluggers is based out of East Alton, Illinois and was coached by Staci Silkwood. In the 3 years she was with the Sluggers, the team won the 12UA IL State tournament.

Then in 2009, Cline moved on to Midland Magic. The Magic, again coached by Staci Silkwood, was her team for 2 years. Both of the years she participated, the team played at the National tournament and Colorado Showcase against teams from all over including Hawaii and California. The Midland Magic finished 13th in the national tournament in 2010.

Then, in the summer of 2011, Cline returned to the Midland Magic coached by Tony Moll. In the summer of 2012, she will be playing with Midland Magic Gold under the direction of Dale Shelton.

In addition to the numerous select teams, she also participated in an Elite softball program hosted by Nic Nelson. In this program, you have to first go through an evaluation to be accepted. Then once you are accepted, you travel around to different college campuses and play a scrimmage game on their field in front of college coaches.

Some of the places Cline traveled to were: Mizzou, Illinois State, St. Louis University, and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. “Sometimes I went to more than one college in one day,” Cline informed us, “I did this program for 3 years.”

I love all the positions, Abbie said, but she indicated that outfield and catching were her favorites. “I love running down a fly ball or making a diving catch in the outfield,” Cline said of the outfield, “But I also love catching and working with pitchers to analyze a batter and figuring out what pitches to throw against her.”

Cline excels on the offensive side too. “I love the feeling when you are up to bat, you hit the ball, and you just know that it was a good hit by how good it felt,” Cline stated.

As much as Cline loves playing softball, it wouldn’t be the same without the memories she has made. According to Cline, she has met so many amazing people and made so many friends from playing softball. From the late nights in hotel rooms to the car rides, from the rain delays to the 7 am game times, from the crazy team dinners to the team Christmas parties, it makes every ounce of hard work she puts into it worth the while.

A team spends so much time together that they become like a family, she said as she recalled her 2011 softball team. “I have had the opportunity to meet all of my future teammates at Austin Peay,” Cline said, “And I can’t wait to be on the team.”

Cline framing a pitch and awaiting a call.

To Cline, softball is a way of life. Like many coaches have told her: it will prepare her for success in life. To be good at softball, you have to have a good ethic and that will stay with you throughout the rest of your life. It also takes a lot of mental toughness to play softball at a competitive level. Nothing I have experienced now will ever compare to softball in college though, she went on to say.

At Gillespie High School, Cline has played softball for all 4 years under the direction of Michelle (Tucker) Smith and grabbed numerous awards. On the softball team, she was the team MVP in both the 2010 and 2011 seasons as well as the co-captain in 2011.

In the conference, she was selected as honorable mention back in 2009 during her freshman year, then was selected as second-team in 2010 as catcher, and finally honored with the first team selection in 2011 for catcher again. In both the 2010 and 2011 seasons, she was selected to play in the Prairie State Conference all star game.

On a higher note, she was named to the State Journal Register 1A/2A Area All-Star Team as well as Austin Peay State University Camp MVP in 2010 and just this past season, she was named to the Alton Telegraph Small School All-Area Team.

If the opportunity arises, Cline would like to coach softball in the future. For the 2012 softball season, she would like to see a 1st place in Conference, a first round win in Sectionals, and less rain.

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Featured

Gillespie man injured in DUI accident

Published

9 years ago

October 16, 2015

BenGil Staff

Genisio's Ford Mustang in the City of Gillespie's impound lot Tuesday morning.

A Gillespie man was taken to a local hospital after suffering injuries following a single-vehicle accident that occurred Sunday morning, October 11, after he drove off the roadway and into a deep ditch near the intersection of Route 16 and Charles Street in Gillespie.

Gillespie Police Chief Jared DePoppe reported that the police department was dispatched to the scene of the accident shortly before 3 a.m. Officers arrived to find Jonathan Genisio, 29, of Gillespie as the driver and only occupant inside the Ford Mustang vehicle.

Genisio was arrested, but give a notice to appear in court so he could seek medical treatment. He was charged with six different counts in addition to having his vehicle impounded. His charges include driving under the influence of alcohol, no insurance, improper lane usage, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, failure to notify SOS of an address change and failure to wear a seat belt.

At the time of publication on Thursday evening, the vehicle was recovered from impound and Genisio was discharged from the hospital. The extent of his injuries was unable to be released by medical personnel.

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Community News

Gillespie council discusses budget and meeting process

Published

9 years ago

August 1, 2015

BenGil Staff

Treasurer Dan Fisher (right) addresses the council.

The treasurer for the City of Gillespie had a lot to say about how city officials handle their subcommittees and how city funds are spent during the city’s committee meeting held Monday evening, July 27.

Dan Fisher, the elected treasurer for Gillespie, spoke to the council for over 30 minutes about how bills are paid and more importantly, how purchases are appropriated for and planned. During the city’s board meeting held earlier this month, Fisher suggested the council move their meeting dates to coincide with how the bills are paid.

He explained that many council members bring up issues or have questions about certain bills during the council meetings, but the questions are left to be answered by the city clerk who isn’t present at the board meetings. In addition to dragging out the meetings, Fisher said the questions should be taken care of before the meeting is held.

“We need to have a standardized process on how we buy things,” Fisher told the council Monday evening. “We need to spend more time on appropriating.”

We need to have a standardized process on how we buy things

Fisher distributed a “Budget Basics” packet to board members during the committee meeting held Monday and said the council should consider implementing a purchase order system to account for all purchases. “That way when the bills come in, we can match the form up with it and everyone knows what the purchase was for and what account it comes out of,” he clarified.

Council members agreed with what Fisher had to say to them. “We need to spend a lot of time when do our appropriation and it’s going to take a lot of time from everyone, including myself,” he continued. “We need to find a way to be collective in how we do things.”

Fisher closed by adding that the council also takes too long at their regular city council meetings, which are held on the second Monday of each month. Speaking of the city’s July meeting that lasted nearly 3 hours, Fisher said the council needs to be much more “business-like”.

“We take too long at our meetings,” he closed. “It’s been proven that people lose focus after 90 minutes and there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get a meeting done in 1 hour and 15 minutes.”

City clerk Frances Smith spoke up after Fisher referred to the council’s last meeting. She prefaced her statement by saying she didn’t intend to saying anything, but continued by saying that the council’s July 13^th meeting took her three days to transcribe. “It makes the clerk’s job hard – whoever it is,” she said. “There is a lot of side conversations and it’s very hard to hear on the tape.”

Ash Street Project

Alderman Steve Kluthe informed the board that he received the bid specifications back for the Ash Street Project which allows the council to advertise the specs to get an idea how much drainage project will cost.

Kluthe said the bid specifications cover everything including equal opportunity employer and prevailing wage information, but said the project could probably be handled by a local contractor. The project includes installing a culvert that will transfer the water to Cherry Street.

The council hopes the completed project will then alleviate the water that currently gets backed up north of Ash Street. “They are going to put a culvert underneath Ash Street to the north and grade the ground on the north side so the water flows to the culvert and down to the south end where there is a storm drain,” Kluthe explained.

TIF District

We should stretch the money out and begin to reinvest the money into community development

Fisher informed the council that the tax bills for the TIF district went out and the city can expect to receive close to $60,000. He reminded the council that even though the city made a big payment to United Community Bank last year in excess of $90,000, there will still be a payment made to UCB for their portion paid into the TIF until the TIF expires, which Fisher said is 12-14 more years.

After the city pays UCB, Fisher said the council can expect to still have somewhere north of $40,000 remaining each year. “I would like us to start to look at other projects that meet the TIF criteria that we could spend $20-$30,000 per year,” Fisher explained. “Long-range projects – projects that could last 10-12 years. We should stretch the money out and begin to reinvest the money into community development.”

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