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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (March 10, 2021)
EIGHT - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, March 10, 2021 Mustang’s start football season with win The Heppner Mustang football team started their new season off with a win over the Grant Union Pros- pectors (GU) in John Day last Friday. The Mustangs won the game by the score of 35-0. Heppner kicker, Conor Brosnan, started the sea- son by kicking off to the Prospectors. The stingy Mustang defense forced a GU punt and gave the offense the ball at midfield. I took only four plays for Heppner to score their first touchdown of the season. Running back Blake Wolt- ers took a handoff from quarterback Jayden Wilson and powered his way into the end zone from five yards out for the score. The 2-pt. conversion attempt failed, and the Mustangs led 6-0 only three minutes into the game. The Mustang defense stopped the Prospectors on downs and got the ball right back. A Heppner fumble gave it back to GU, they then mounted a drive for a short distance before the Mustang defense stopped the Prospectors on a fourth and one play. Heppner took over and after two Wilson pass completions, one to Jace Coe and the other to Jackson Lehman, Wilson then handed the ball off to Wolters who scampered 20 yards for another touch- down. Wilson threw to Kason Cimmiyotti for the 2-pt. conversion to make the score 14-0. Another three-and-out was forced by the Mustang defense and the offense took over at their own 29- yard line. A 13-play drive, that included four first downs and took six min- utes off of the clock, ended with another Heppner score when Wilson ran the ball in from one yard out. Bros- nan kicked the extra point and the Mustangs led 21-0 midway through the second Conor Brosnan (56) and Mikel Jaca (54) -Photo by Damon Brosnan. quarter. Again, the Heppner defense didn’t allow the Prospectors to advance and stopped them on a fourth down play. The Mustang offense didn’t waste any time and only needed two plays to score again. The first play was a 22-yard run by Wolters that set up an 18- yard touchdown run from Brock Hisler. Once again Brosnan made the extra point kick and the Mustangs led 28-0 at halftime. The Prospectors kicked off to start the second half and Lehman returned the ball 73 yards for another Heppner touchdown. Bros- nan kicked the extra point to make the score 35-0. At this point in the game, the 35-point rule, kept the clock running for the rest of the game. It used to be a 45-point difference that would trigger that, but it was changed this year. The teams traded pos- sessions several more times throughout the second half until the Heppner coaches started to substitute freely in the fourth quarter. The game ended with the final score of 35-0. Heppner scored on five of their ten possessions. They had 16 first downs to only six for GU. The Mustangs rushed for 192 yards and held GU to 61. for the total project budget committed before applying. Exceptions may apply at the discretion of the board. A grant application has been developed for use in applying for funding through this grant. Com- pleted grant requests will be accepted starting on Monday, March 15 through Monday, April 19. The re- view and decision of grants awarded will be decided by the WCVEDG board and the winners communicated. To receive a grant ap- plication form and an el- igibility and exclusions information sheet, contact Sheryll Bates at 541-676- 5536, or email to hep- pnerchamber@gmail.com. Hunter Nichols, a 2019 HHS graduate is a sophomore at Eastern Oregon University. Former Heppner High graduate, Hunter Nich- ols, recently competed at the NAIA Indoor National Track & Field Champi- onships at Mount Marty University in South Dakota. Nichols, who is a sopho- more at Eastern Oregon University finished in the top five on Saturday, March 6. Nichols finished with a time of two minutes, 32.51 seconds in the 1,000 meters event and earned All-Amer- ica honors. It was Nichols’ first trip to the nationals. His top time for the season was 2:30.53, ranking eighth in the EOU Mounties re- cord book. Nichols will compete in cross-country next, joining the Mounties mid-season. Tacos Hometown gets new look Blake Wolters (26), Jayden Wilson (13) and Hayden Hyatt (50) -Photo by Damon Brosnan. Heppner had 294 total yards of offense to just 83 for GU. Wilson was 8-13 pass- ing the ball for 94 yards with one interception. Landon Mitchell was 2-3 for 14 yards in the game. Lehman caught four passes for 62 yards, Wolters and Coe each caught two for 16 yards. Saul Lopez had one catch for 10 and Caden George had a reception for four yards. Wolters led the team in rushing with 89 yards on seven carries and scored two times. Hisler carried the ball four times for 58 yards and a touchdown while Wilson ran the ball five times for 25 yards and a score. Lehman had a carry WCVEDG grant applications being accepted Grant funds are avail- able for Community and Public Enhancements re- quests by Willow Creek Valley Economic Develop- ment Group. The available funds are to be used for community and public en- hancement for south Mor- row County communities. Applicant organizations must be a local organiza- tion, club, special district or a governmental entity who resides in the south Morrow County service area (as defined by the WC- VEDG service area map). The requestor must have at least 50 percent of funding, which may include in-kind and cash contributions from local and regional sources, Nichols competes at national event Forms can also be picked up at Heppner, Ione and Lex- ington City Hall offices or printed from the Economic Development tab on the Heppner Chamber website at www.heppnerchamber. com. All completed grant applications will need to be forwarded to the cham- ber office to be eligible for consideration of funding. Grants can be emailed, mailed, hand delivered or faxed to 541-676-5656, but must be received in the Chamber office no later than Monday, April 19 to be eligible for consideration in the grant review and de- cision process. for 12 yards, Lopez had one for seven yards and George also had one carry for six yards. On the defensive side of the ball, Wolters led the team with nine tackles. Lehman was next with eight tackles and Hisler had sev- en. Blane Mahoney record- ed six tackles, Mikel Jaca had four and Coe was next with three. Tucker Ashbeck and Cody Fletcher each had two tackles for the team and with one tackle each were Roy Collins, Hayden Hy- att, Derrick Smith, Wilson, Cimmiyotti and Brosnan. The Mustangs are scheduled to travel to Stan- field on Friday night to take on the Tigers. The taco truck in Heppner has become the taco trailer, sporting a bright new color. -Photo by Giselle Moses. If you have been down- town Heppner the past cou- ple weeks, you have prob- ably noticed something is different about the Tacos Hometown food truck. The local business is sporting a new look in the form of a new trailer. Amado and Elia Juarez opened Tacos Hometown in Ione in June of 2013, later moving the business to Heppner. The food truck quickly became a local favorite as evidenced by the line that can be seen forming at their window at lunch time. The name stems from the idea that they want to give everyone the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you are in your hometown. Amado’s father, An- dres, had a house this col- or back in his hometown. Sadly, Andres lost his life to Covid-19 late last year. Amado told the Gazette they chose this color in honor of his late father. The new, brightly painted trailer is parked in its regular lo- cation next to the Heppner Post Office. Customers may check out their weekly schedule and specials on the Tacos Hometown Facebook page and call or text in or- ders to 541-561-7397. MCSD to extend length of school days March 29 The Morrow County School District is getting ready to extend the school day for students to 2:45 p.m. It is an option now due to a number of factors. First, with the vast majority of the students attending on-site, there has been no COVID-19 spread at the schools. All K-6 buildings have been open every day without needing to shut down a school due to ex- posure to the virus. Second, they are now allowed to have 28 family groups of students on the bus at a time. This is a significant increase from the beginning of the year when only 20 individuals were allowed on a bus at a time. The extension of the school day will require staff schedules, recess breaks, cleaning processes and meal procedures to be changed to meet the needs of students all day. Current- ly, in many cases staff are waiting to eat lunch until after the students get on the bus to go home at 1 p.m. Scheduling consid- erations will consist of maintaining high quality cleaning and disinfection of classroom surfaces, main- taining social distancing and frequent hand washing in the classroom, maintain- ing mask wearing in the classroom, scheduling one class in a designated outside play area at a time, ensuring students belong to very few cohort groups to limit expo- sure and including recess, PE, and music in the weekly schedule, when possible. “We are so grateful to the communities in Morrow County for partnering with school staff in providing instruction to our students. We appreciate your help to assist us in meeting the requirements of the Oregon Health Authority so that students and staff remain healthy, and our schools can remain open. We are so ex- cited to get back to our new “normal” and have students at school until 2:45pm each school day starting March 29, 2021,” stated a school official. T he W eather I s C hangIng ! IT’S TIME !! COME IN TO HEPPNER LES SCHWAB TO HAVE YOUR STUDDED TIRES REMOVED! DEADLINE TO REMOVE STUDS IS APRIL 1st! 124 N. MAIN STREET HEPPNER OR 541-676-9481
