Recent Point Pleasant Grads Killed In Illinois Interstate Crash

MULBERRY GROVE, IL — Two Brick residents who were killed in a crash involving a semi-trailer on an interstate in Illinois near St. Louis are remembered as a longtime couple who competed in sports as recent graduates of Point Pleasant Borough High School.

Marsada Connors, 20, and Cole Young, 19, were both killed at the scene of the Friday morning crash involving three vehicles on Interstate 70 outside Mulberry Grove, Illinois, a community some 60 miles east of St. Louis.

Illinois State Police said Connors was a passenger in a 2008 Honda Odyssey driven by Young at 9:19 a.m. near the interstate's milepost 55 in Fayette County when the car was struck by a 2020 freight liner truck tractor semi-trailer that went across the median into oncoming traffic.

The semi-trailer also struck a 2005 Chevrolet pickup pulling a trailer that had a car, but the 31-year-old driver and 29-year-old passenger from Pleasant Hope, Missouri, both refused medical attention, police said.

The semi-trailer driver, 55-year-old Bill Lard, of Los Angeles, was airlifted to an area hospital with serious injuries. An update on his condition wasn't known on Sunday. Lard was cited for improper lane use and failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, the Ashbury Park Press reported.

Young was a varsity baseball player at Point Pleasant, while Connors played basketball, according to the publication.

David Drew, who coached both recent grads, told the Park Press they were "just two of the best kids you could imagine."

He said Young and Connors were a longtime couple, and on their way home from a cross-country trip when they were killed in Illinois.

"Everyone in the community is shaken up," Drew said. "Our prayers are with their family."