Featured

Miners football season comes to an end

Published

13 years ago

October 31, 2011

BenGil Staff

David Chapman blocks for Eric Tiller.

In a win or die situation Friday night, October 28, the Miners were in a familiar place: playoffs. The Miners traveled over an hour to play at Williamsville (9-0), the team that has beat the Miners the past two times they played them in the first round of playoffs.

The Miner team was escorted out of town by a rally of supporters and flashing lights, but the ride home was rather quiet as the Miners football season came to an end on Friday night after the 56-28 defeat from Williamsville.

The Miners won the opening coin toss and kicked off to start the game, but Williamsville scored first and scored often as they were on the scoreboard within 2 minutes of the first quarter. A 14 yard rush amounted to 7 points and the Miners trailed early. The opening offensive drive for the Miners resulted in a turnover, but the punt was recovered by the special team force and set the offense up at the 18 yard line for a second chance. The punt recovery, which was picked up after it bounced off the hands of a Williamsville player, knotted the game up a 7 as Derrick Tiburzi rushed in for a 1-yard touchdown after Graham Cooper and Johnny Cox were able to gain a combined 17 yards.

With 6 minutes left in the first quarter, it looked as if it was going to be tight game as the scoreboard read 7-7, but that would change after 2 minutes rolled off of the game clock. Williamsville found the endzone for the second time in the first quarter after a 16 yard run around the outside of the Miner defense. The 16 yard rushing touchdown was followed with an extra point field goal and the Bullets led 14-7 with less than 3 minutes to play in the first quarter.

Chris Halpin breaks the tackle for a large gain.

The Miners responded quickly as Johnny Cox was able to rush for 61 yards on the third offensive drive. Cox capped his long drive with a 2-yard rushing touchdown and knotted the game back up at 14 with just over a minute left in the first quarter, but that would be the last touchdown from the Miner offense for 26 minutes as the Miners were not able to score again until the fourth quarter. Williamsville proved time was not a factor after they scored again with just over 30 seconds left. The 6 yard rush up the middle tacked on 6 more points to the home side of the scoreboard, but the extra point field goal was blocked by Jason Whitlock and the score remained 20-14 as the first quarter came to an end.

Gillespie opened up the second quarter with the ball, but it was a quick 3 downs as they punted it away early to record their second turnover in the game. Williamsville wasted no time in the second quarter as they built their lead up after the 43 yard rushing touchdown with 10:34 minutes left in the second quarter increased their lead by 14 as the score was now 28-14. The next two offensive drives from the Miners resulted in a turnover, as the Miners recorded three turnovers in the second quarter after the offense could only gain about 30 yards on the ground and just 2 yards through the air as quarterback Cort Hellmann completed 1 of 4 passes in the quarter.

Williamsville cashed in on all three of the Miner’s turnovers for three touchdowns in the second quarter, one being a 67 yard pass which came with 5:04 minutes left before halftime. The 67 yard pass added 7 more points to the score as the scoreboard read 35-14. Just as the final seconds were rolling off the game clock, the Bullets found the endzone for the third and final time in the second quarter with only 30 seconds left to play. After the extra point was successful, the Miners trailed 42-14 at halftime.

Coming out of the lockeroom at halftime, the Miners were set to receive as they were four touchdowns behind. There was no spark from the offense though as it was the same story as the second quarter: three offensive drives resulted it three turnovers, one turnover being a fumble only 40 yards away from the endzone. Even though the offense tallied three turnovers in the quarter, the offense was able to gain over 40 yards on the ground and 15 yards through the air as Cort Hellmann completed 2 of 3 passes in the third quarter.

Keith Lovejoy and Derrick Tiburzi block as Johnny Cox runs for a small gain.

Williamsville, however, were able to cash in on two offensive drives for touchdowns in the quarter, but also recorded their first turnover in the game in the third quarter. The Bullets were not able to score until 4 minutes were left in the quarter as their first touchdown capped a 60 yard drive after they recovered the Miner’s fumble. One touchdown was not enough cushion though as WIlliamsville was back in the endzone just 2 minutes later after a 18 yard rushing touchdown extended their lead by 42 points as the scoreboard read 56-14.

After the Bullets secured the 42 point lead, Williamsville rotated their bench in the game as the game clock was now able to continuously run throughout the rest of the game. The remaining 2 minutes after the touchdown quickly expired and the Miners were down to their last 12 minutes of the game.

Johnny Cox opened the fourth quarter up with a bang as he added 6 points to the visitor side of the scoreboard after his 8 yard rushing touchdown. After Aaron Semplowski’s successful extra point, the Miners trailed 56-21 with 11 minutes left to play in the game.

The Bullet’s offense was no match for the Miner defense in the fourth quarter as the Bullet’s tacked on 2 more turnovers in the final quarter of play.

Jason Whitlock blocks the extra point field goal attempt.

As Williamsville’s starting lineup stood on the sideline, the Miners were able to find the endzone once more in the final quarter after Cort Hellmann scored on the quarterback sneak and after the pat was good, the Miners trailed 56-28 with just 4 minutes to play.

Cort Hellmann completed his one and only pass play in the fourth quarter as he was able to gather 60 yards after he found Michael Henderson open along the sideline, but the Miner’s were unable to score again in the fourth quarter as the offense struggled to manage the continuous clock wisely. As the final seconds closed in the game, the Miners successful football season came to an end.

The Miners ended their season with a 7-3 record and a 5-2 record in the Prairie State Conference. Williamsville will now move on and play Central/Southeastern High School in the second round of the class 2A playoffs. Central/Southeastern High School is coming in after a 27-14 victory over Athens. Central/Southeastern High School sports a 10-0 record.

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Cort Hellmann mans the offense for the Miners.

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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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