Baseball: Hollingsworth looks like a hit for Round Lake
The baseball team that a couple of years ago boasted a lefty-throwing catcher (Tyler Sanchez) has another big deal behind the plate.
Lucas Hollingsworth checks in at 6 feet 3 and 205 pounds. That's not your typical body type for a catcher, but the Round Lake junior is clearly an athlete. And he knows "squat," so to speak, considering he's been catching since the sixth grade.
"At my height, (catching) can be painful," Hollingsworth said. "It puts a little stress on my knees.
"I like catching," he added. "You got to block every ball that you can."
Hollingsworth has been showing off his athleticism the entire school year. He also started for the football and basketball teams, and Wednesday he displayed his value to the Panthers again.
While visiting Zion-Benton pulled out a 4-2 win to spoil Round Lake's home opener and keep the Panthers winless on the season, Hollingsworth went 2-for-3 with a booming double in the fourth that trimmed his team's 2-0 deficit in half.
His hitting has been a bright spot for Round Lake (0-4).
"We're pretty young," said Panthers coach Ed Adamson, whose only senior starters Wednesday were center fielder Gianni Ocana, right fielder Liam Negrete and pitcher Paul Lew. "We're trying to grow the program. We got some good athletes that just need some playing time to get some experience."
Zion-Benton, which improved to 1-1 under second-year coach Daryl Bellows, scored twice in the seventh to snap a 2-2 tie. Andrew Green's one-out, bases-loaded sacrifice fly off sophomore Gio Cirelli drove in the go-ahead run. Nate Nelson then singled in an insurance run.
Zion-Benton went 3-22 last spring in Bellows' first season, which was Year 1 of what he called a rebuild.
"I think we'll be better than we were last year," Bellows said. "Last year we couldn't play defense. We had some pitching that executed our plan. This year I think we got a much-better defense, but now we got to get our pitchers to execute the plan. Our pitchers were a little up in the zone today."
Round Lake squandered a glorious scoring chance in the third inning, trailing 2-0. The Panthers loaded the bases on consecutive singles by Lew, junior Shane Gonka and sophomore Angel Cuevas. But Zee-Bees starting pitcher Green got a fielder's-choice putout at the plate and then a 6-4-3 double play started by shortstop Collin Shaide.
Round Lake played well defensively, too, committing just 1 error.
"Defensively, I think we've gotten a lot better (compared to) past years," said Hollingsworth, who shares catching duties with senior Zack Husk. "Our pitchers are really trying. That's the big thing for me."
Like Hollingsworth, Gonka singled and doubled. Gonka reached on a one-out error in the bottom of the seventh to bring the tying run to the plate. But Logan Bakkila, who pitched 3 innings in relief and got the win, retired the next two batters.
"Today our bats finally started coming alive," Adamson said. "We started executing."