Daryl Bellows wasn’t expecting to produce miracles in his first season as Zion-Benton’s coach, but he probably didn’t have 1-12 in mind for his first 13 games either.
Two or three of those recent outings have given the Zee-Bees some reason for optimism as they head into the second half of their schedule.
The Zee-Bees beat Grayslake Central 2-1 in their best defensive game of the season last Thursday. Then they roughed up Waukegan ace Jean Casanova for six runs in two innings, but fell to the Bulldogs 9-8 in the Battle of Bowen on Friday.
“That was the fourth pitcher of that caliber we’ve seen,” said Bellows, referring to TCU recruit Cal Coughlin of Lake Forest and the Mundelein duo of Brendan Murphy (Arizona State) and Reese Dolan (Southern Illinois).
“We haven’t hit at all until the last three or four games. I’m trying to tell the kids that we’re lucky to see the kind of pitchers we’ve been seeing. It has been a learning experience. I’m trying to get them to understand we are getting better.”
A member of Waukegan’s 1983 Class AA state championship team, Bellows has coached high school and youth baseball since joining the Waukegan West staff as a volunteer in 1985.
He was hired as Zion-Benton’s coach in October, and one of his first orders of business was upgrading the schedule.
“We are playing everybody in the county,” Bellows said. “The talent level isn’t where it needs to be, and that is something we need to continually work on. But we’ve got a lot of kids who experience-wise just haven’t played a lot of baseball.
“We are probably behind almost everybody in the county. This summer we’re going to have two high school teams. The idea is to get guys as much playing time and teaching as we can.”
With a team ERA of 3.32, the Zee-Bees may well have a bit of a run in them this spring.
Beneath Jake Greenberg’s 0-4 record is a tidy 1.79 ERA. Fellow senior Robbie Hutchison (1-1, 3.00 ERA) pitched a three-hitter to beat a quality Grayslake Central team for the Zee-Bees’ lone win.
Junior catcher Brennan Ferguson, who went 4-for-4 against Waukegan and is coming off a nine-hit week, leads the improving offense with a .350 average.
“As much as I’d love to be 6-6 at this point, and I think we could be if we played a little better defense, this year has been an evaluation year for everyone in the program,” Bellows said.
“Our facilites have been upgraded and we have a lot of stuff going in the right direction. Our field is as good as any in Lake County. We’ve taken great care of it and our kids take great pride in it. When we’re on the road our kids are surprised. They say, ‘This field isn’t as good as ours.’
“I’ve told our kids, ‘You’re lucky to have this, now we need to bring our level of play up to what our facilities are.’ And I think they will. It is just a matter of getting kids experience.”
More of the same: Warren’s shutout streak ended at four games last week when Ryan Davila gave up his first earned run of the season in the Blue Devils’ 4-1 victory over Lake Zurich.
After Riley Kocen allowed no earned runs in the team’s 12-2 victory over Antioch on Saturday, Warren has allowed a total of three earned runs while going 7-1 in its last eight games.
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Casanova update: Despite the rough outing against Zion-Benton in the Battle of Bowen, Jean Casanova continues to shine for Waukegan.
The tall, slender senior right-hander, has 80 strikeouts in 40 2/3 innings this season while walking 21 and giving up 20 hits.
He has a 1.38 ERA and recorded double-digit strikeouts four times, including a career-high 17 in 7 1/3 innings against Highland Park on April 14.
Mike Helfgot is a freelance writer for the News-Sun.