Published: November 03, 2009 12:29 am      

Mings, Gridiron Club celebrate a trying 2009

MVTHS varsity football awards banquet

By JOHN ROARK

john.roark@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — Monday night’s awards program banquet wasn’t about the wins and losses with the Mt. Vernon Township High School varsity football team. It was more about recognizing the young men who endured a trying 2009 campaign.

“Everybody likes to win,” Rams coach Dan Mings told a large crowd at the Girdiron Club’s gathering at the Holiday Inn convention room. “But it’s a community thing, and the good, the bad and the ugly come with that. The boys did the best they could, the coaches did the best they could, the cheerleaders did the best they could and the Girdiron Club did the best it could.”

The Rams finished 2-7, but to Mings, the season stretched deeper into pockets that didn’t include wins and losses.

“People who are important to me have been sick (this season),” Mings said. “People who are important to the people who are important to me haven’t been well. It’s been a long season for everyone.”

There were still grand highlights to the season. Atop it all was the record-setting performances of senior special-teams artists Brian Sipe and Michael Swinnen.

Sipe, coming off the edge as the opposition kicked, blocked seven kicks this season, which is now an all-time state record. The previous mark was shared by three other players: Anna-Jonesboro’s Clark Verble in 1946, Mt. Prospect’s David Gowing (1998) and Providence’s Gannon Novak (2004).

Sipe finished his career with 11 blocks, tying Olympia’s Tim Walsh atop the record books.

“That is a selfless, painful job,” Mings said of Sipe’s ability to lunge and put his paws on a ball coming off a foot.

Sipe’s two blocks in a game, against Cahokia last year, ties him for second-best all-time behind seven others who blocked three in a single contest.

Swinnen, the Rams’ kicker as a freshman, booted 83 point-after kicks in his four-year career, along with 18 career field goals — eight in a season — all which will put him in the Illinois High School Association record books.

Mings recalled Swinnen being able to kick as an eighth-grader, booming his first trial over two backstops at Strothmann Park, off Mings’ tee.

“The ball cleared two backstops and landed on the pitchers’ mound on the second field,” Mings said. “I had found a new kicker, and he’s won a few games here for us in his four years here.”

The MVTHS coaching staff named seniors Lucas Hurst and Torrey Pollard as team Most Valuable Players. Hurst was also named the team’s hardest hitter, Eric Heinzman took the hustle award and Blake Fields was given the team’s weightlifting award.

Gridiron Club president Tom Jackson — who earlier announced the club had raised more than $13,000 — recognized Sipe and lineman David Price as the club’s Players of the Year.

Swinnen, Sipe, Price, Hurst, Jesse Stuckey, Jim Mulvaney, Fields and Dontes Phipps were recipients of the club’s scholarship awards.

Cheerleaders were also recognized. MVTHS head coach Lisa Turner awarded Brooke Kujawa as the Most Valuable freshman-sophomore squad member and Candi Scarborough as the varsity MVP. Scarborough also won the Merit Award.

Monday’s event was sponsored by Community First Bank of the Heartland, the first time the awards program has gained a sponsor.