Scouting the Round Lake Panthers

It could be worse, with no disrespect to the outfield grass on Round Lake's baseball field.

The diamond is where Round Lake's football team practiced this summer. Other spacious grassy areas at the high school remain unavailable as the stadium gets a major makeover that will include artificial turf, new bleachers, new goal posts and a new press box.

Until Round Lake is ready to debut its stadium, the Panthers practice daily at the Round Lake Area Park District's Lakewood Grove Park. It's about a 15-minute drive, depending on traffic. There is green grass and painted stripes for a makeshift football field.

"Actually," first-year coach Scott Blecha said, "this is great."

"We would like to have our field," quarterback Isaiah Nixon said. "But this works."

For a team that went 1-8 last year (and hasn't won three games in a season since 2006), no one is complaining. To the Panthers' credit, they haven't made their inconvenient situation an issue. It's all about having a positive mindset, veteran Kevonne Peterson says.

"We just get out here and work and put in the time that we can," the 6-foot-2, 156-pound senior wide receiver said. "We make the best of it. It really doesn't seem like we're going somewhere (different for practice) because we put in as much effort as we would if we were at our own field. Nothing's really changed, honestly."

The Panthers have even taken advantage of their daily bus rides to practice. Since official practice started this month, all levels have traveled to Lakewood Grove Park.

"Throughout the school day, we don't have much time to talk to each other and see each other," junior running back/linebacker Dominick Tovar said. "So on the bus ride here we're all bonding, and on the bus ride home we're all bonding."

Blecha is getting to know his players too. While he's the math department chair at Round Lake and is in his ninth year teaching at the high school, he spent the last four football seasons coaching on Dave Mills' staff at Wauconda. Before that, Blecha coached under John Coursey and Jordan Eder at Round Lake. He quarterbacked Conant to the state quarterfinals as a senior in 2002.

"He's a pretty cool coach," Nixon said.

"We're going to try to get the ball in the hands of our players. We have a lot of athletes," said Blecha, who replaces Cristo Garza, who took the head job at Zion-Benton. "We had a lot of holdover with the (previous) coaching staff. A lot of guys decided to stay on board. A lot of good guys. We're really just going to be building on what they've done the last two years."

Nixon and Peterson earned all-Northern Lake County Conference honors last year. The 5-9, 150-pound Nixon has a strong arm and he can make plays with his legs, as well.

"Definitely a good athlete," Blecha said. "He keeps wanting to play receiver, but he's a quarterback for us."

"Isaiah brings all the intensity," said Tovar, who serves as a team captain with Nixon and Peterson. "He keeps our energy up because that's our quarterback."

Round Lake's new field will not be ready for its season opener, so the Panthers will host Amundsen at Grayslake Central on Saturday, Aug. 31 (noon kickoff). Round Lake is targeting its Week-4 game (Sept. 20) vs. North Chicago for the unveiling of its new facility.

"The opening ceremony," Peterson said, "I already know it's going to be a forever-lasting memory for this team and for the school."

That day can't come soon enough.

"At some point we'll look back at this and chuckle that we had to hop on a bus to come (to practice)," Blecha said. "We're just hoping (the stadium) is ready sooner than later. For all of our seniors, it's a tough senior season."

But who's complaining?

"We keep putting in work, especially since we got to come this far (for practice)," Tovar said. "We're putting extra work in because we know that we got less time to practice."