Hill’s five score effort leads Minooka to easy win

Updated: September 16, 2011 11:56PM

A first-place tie between Minooka and Plainfield East wasn’t on the preseason radar in the Southwest Prairie Conference—Minooka was 10-2 last season, Plainfield East 1-8.

Loser of its first two games, Minooka won’t go unnoticed after the host Indians kept at least a share of first place Friday night with a 54-27 victory, their second straight.

Senior running back Kalvin Hill rushed for 310 yards and five touchdowns on 29 carries, including three fourth-quarter scores after East got within 33-27 in the third quarter with its third kick return for a touchdown.

“The first drive of the game we went three-and-out, but we corrected things and came out there with more intensity,” Hill said. “My line blocked great and I ran hard and made things happen.”

The 5-foot-8, 180-pound Hill scored on runs of 69, 5, 5, 1 and 38 yards for Minooka (2-2, 2-0).

“Obviously, Kalvin had a big night for us,” Minooka coach Bert Kooi said. “He had some great runs. Everybody thinks they’ve got him bottled up. He finds some type of seam that nobody else sees.”

“We knew we had to put up points,” Hill said. “Their kick return was definitely great.”

Plainfield East (1-3, 1-1) got a third kick return for a touchdown—the last an 85-yarder by Myles Walters—to trim Minooka’s lead to 33-27.

“It’s not even a ballgame if our kickoff coach can’t get his kickoff team going here, and I’m the kickoff guy,” Kooi said. “That’s the guy we need to fire, we need to fire the kickoff coach.”

Minooka’s halftime lead was cut to 26-21 after Aris Irizarry returned a kickoff 79 yards as time expired in the half.

Minooka had just completed a 14-play, 89-yard drive to go ahead 26-14 on a 2-yard plunge by quarterback Joe Carnagio with 11 seconds left in the second quarter.

A 69-yard run by Hill and a 2-yard dive by Mike Ivlow put Minooka ahead 12-0 in the first quarter. East quarterback Rob Zamora threw an 18-yard TD pass to Walters to make it 12-7 after the opening quarter.

Carnagio connected with Luke Stovall on a 20-yard scoring pass for a 19-7 Minooka lead early in the second quarter, but East’s Brennen Rompa returned the ensuing kickoff 75 yards to make it 19-14 with 10:12 left in the half.

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