Let there be no doubt, Kaneland’s Parker Violett is tough enough.
The 6-foot-3 senior forward, in his third season on varsity, is no shrinking Violett.
He’s played nearly two weeks with two injuries — a strained calf and a broken middle finger on his left hand, taped to his index finger for support — suffered in a late November game.
“He’s a warrior,” Knights coach Ernie Colombe said. “He’s been battling. There will be days where the trainer says, ‘Hey coach, if he wants to, let (Parker) go light today.’ And Parker will come in and say, ‘Hey coach, I’m practicing. I’m not going light.’
“It’s just the kind of kid he is.”
That was apparent Saturday afternoon as Violett scored nine points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked four shots in a 50-35 nonconference victory at Marmion.
Violett earned the team’s Hustle Belt award. Junior Freddy Hassan, Violett’s 6-6 running mate at forward, added a team-high 12 points and nine rebounds for Kaneland (6-1).
Senior guard Evan Stumm scored a game-high 14 points to lead Marmion (4-5).
Violett, who plays at 195 pounds, will be in his fourth varsity baseball season this spring for the Knights and is already committed to St. Xavier. He comes by his warrior mentality naturally.
His mother, Cynthia, is the girls varsity volleyball coach at Kaneland. And he doesn’t sound coddled.
“I don’t even think about it,” Parker said. “She toughens me a lot — like with the finger. She told me to keep playing.”
It’s what he does.
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“He’s an energy guy,” Colombe said. “He gets tough rebounds. He battles. He’s about 6-3, but I think he plays a lot bigger than 6-3.”
An outfielder who can pitch and play first base, he carries a similar competitive edge to the baseball field for the Knights.
He’s also following in the footsteps of older brother Jacob, a 2016 Kaneland graduate, and his dad, Jeff, who played baseball in college at Upper Iowa.
“He’s such a force in the outfield, he can run everything down,” said Brian Aversa, who is Kaneland’s baseball coach. “He could play almost anywhere but catcher. We’ll probably have him pitch more this year than he did last year.”
Violett doubled twice off the wall last May in a 7-4 win over Batavia at Northwestern Medicine Field, home of the Kane Country Cougars.
Aversa chuckled at the memory.
“He asked me afterward, ‘Did you see what bat I used?'” Aversa said. “It was his brother’s old bat that was like eight years old. His brother hit one out there with that bat, and Parker wanted to do it, too.
“I told him if he used his regular bat, one of them probably would have gone out.”
Saturday at Marmion, Kaneland picked up its defense entering the second half after facing a 22-22 tie. The Knights limited the Cadets to five points in the third quarter and just eight in the fourth to put the game away.
Violett provided the spark at the end of the first half, stepping up to block a buzzer-beater 3-point attempt from Marmion guard Caden Anderson.
“It was kind of a gutsy move, a little bit,” Violett said. “It was going to either be a block or a foul. I’d rather they have no points there.”
Colombe was pleased with the defensive effort.
“They’ve got some shooters, so that was good to see,” he said.
Marmion coach Joe Piekarz took notice as well.
“He is physical,” Piekarz said of Violett. “He gets a lot of those garbage buckets for them. He’s just around the basket, and all of a sudden, the ball seems to wind up in his hands.
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“And he just puts it back in.”