By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois
Gov. JB Pritzker said May 6 that Illinois will enter the “bridge” phase to full reopening this Friday. And barring any reversal of current trends, Phase 5, or full reopening, will begin on June 11.
He also announced that residents can now obtain COVID-19 vaccines from their physicians’ offices, rather than just designated vaccine sites, as public health officials continue to confront hesitancy within many communities to accept the vaccines.
Last week’s announcement came as the state reached a new benchmark of having 55 percent of adults age 16 and over, and 80 percent of people age 65 and over, having received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Meanwhile, the daily number of new cases, hospitalization rates and intensive care unit usage have all been falling or leveling off.
“This good news comes with a caveat,” Pritzker said. “We have all seen throughout this pandemic that this virus and its variants have proven to be unpredictable. Metrics that look strong today are far from a guarantee of how things will look a week, two weeks, a month from now. We saw that last August, and again last March.”
Under the bridge phase — a transition phase between the current Phase 4 mitigations and the virtually complete reopening of Phase 5 — certain capacity limits will be eased at various kinds of events.
Restaurants, for example, will be allowed to increase from 25 to 30 percent of capacity, as long as people maintain six feet of distance from one another, while offices, personal care facilities and retail service counters can increase from 50 to 60 percent of capacity.
When the state reaches Phase 5, Pritzker said, virtually all mitigation restrictions will be lifted, although the state will still follow guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding wearing masks in large, crowded situations and maintaining safe social distancing.
Left: Dave "Whitey" Grapperhaus talks about the steps needed to get Breese's Larry Doyle into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, during the April 28 meeting of the Breese Historical Society. (Photo by Bryan Hunt); Right: Baseball card depicting Larry Doyle, of Breese and the New York Nationals. One man's dream — to see major leaguer Larry Doyle make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame — has been taken up by another in earnest.
Dave "Whitey" Grapperhaus visited with the Breese Historical Society on April 28, sharing his efforts, and that of the late Mark "Sparky" Niemann, to get "Laughing Larry" enshrined in Cooperstown, New York.
Grapperhaus talked about his work at the society's first in-person meeting over the past year, put off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doyle was born in Caseyville in 1886, but the family moved to Breese in the 1890s. Doyle and his two brothers worked at Consolidated Coal west mine in Breese.
At the time, Doyle was playing baseball for the Breese Merchants.
When his brothers got hurt working in the coal mines, Doyle put down his hard hat and picked up a baseball bat, playing in the minor leagues in Springfield and Mattoon.
After one year in the minors, Doyle was signed to play for the New York Giants in 1907, Grapperhaus said.
Niemann was known as an amateur historian, especially when it came to sports.
"That's how this all started," Grapperhaus said, adding that Niemann wrote a lot of articles about Doyle.
Through his research and compilation of facts and figures, Niemann came to the conclusion that Doyle belonged in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Overtime thriller — Central sophomore Rylee Jansen works the ball into the offensive zone against the defense of Freeburg’s Ellie Range. The Cougars were victorious 3-2 in penalty kicks. The Lady Cougars are 4-3-2 on the season. (Photo by Jeremy Chawgo) The Central Lady Cougars soccer team has their season in full swing after winning two of their three matches last week.
The Lady Cougars started the week with a shutout win over Jerseyville in the Metro-Cup before dropping their final tournament game by a goal to Gibault.
They ended the week with a win over visiting Freeburg in penalty kicks. The Cougars are 4-3-2 on the season and they will host Salem on Thursday and Granite City on Monday.
Central 3, Freeburg 2 (penalty kicks): The Cougars needed two overtimes and penalty kicks to win their home match on Monday.
After Freeburg scored in the first half, the Cougars got the game-tying goal from Emma Wesselmann on an assist from Ocean Reinhardt late in the second half.
Freeburg scored a goal in the first overtime session only to see Central break even when Makenna Lake found the back of the net on an assist from Reaghan Tebbe.
The match moved to penalty kicks where Keira Veizer scored for the Cougars while Madison Ashford made the ensuing save to win it for Central.
Ashford made 18 saves in net to earn the victory.
Gibault 2, Central 1 (overtime): The Lady Cougars lost their Metro-Cup match with the Lady Hawks on Saturday.
Keira Veizer scored the first goal of the match for the Cougars in the first half on an assist from sophomore Melanie Hilmes.
Gibault got the match tied in the second half when Hannah Stearns set up Reece Ward for the game-tying goal.
The Lady Hawks secured the win in the third overtime session. Maddie Davis got the win in net where she made 15 saves. Madison Ashford took the loss with just four saves.
Central 5, Jerseyville 0: The Lady Cougars got a Metro-Cup victory over the Lady Panthers at Althoff last Wednesday in Belleville.
Central got three goals in the first half to set the tone before netting two more in the second half.
That was more than enough offense for Madison Ashford who earned the shutout in net as she made one save in the win.
Rachel Beer, Abigail Crosby, Rylee Jansen, Ocean Reinhardt and Reaghan Tebbe each had one goal for the Cougars.
Elizabeth Schroeder, Keira Veizer and Tebbe all had one assist for Central.
| Fri., May 7 | 444.64 |
| Sun., May 9 | 444.83 |
| Tues., May 11 | 444.90 |
| May 5 | .28" |
| May 6 | .00" |
| May 7 | .11" |
| May 8 | .00" |
| May 9 | .02" |
| May 10 | .05" |
| May 11 | .00" |
