With the Spring sports season coming to an end, the Sweet Home High School continues to sign valuable senior athletes to the next level. This week, Sweet Home saw two athletes sign May 21, with the first one being John Holly.
Holly played in multiple sports including football and baseball. At first, Holly expected to play college football. But when offered to play for Chemeketa Community College, Holly couldn’t let the opportunity pass.
“Originally I was being recruited for college football and that started around late sophomore early junior year,” Holly said. “I never really expected to play baseball in College, but when I got the opportunity and it was close to home I had to take it.”
Chemeketa is located in the North Salem area east of Keizer.
Holly is planning to study business in college while getting his commercial real estate license. He is hoping to start his career off of that.
During his recognition ceremony, former head coach John Best presented him. Best noted that starting baseball freshman year, Holly was lettered all four years of high school.
“He was one of our best hitters (freshman year),” Best said. “Since I’ve been here, we have not had very many folks, there has only been one, who was lettered four times in baseball.”
At the plate this year, Holly had the highest batting average, batting a .377 with a RBI of 19. Holly also had a fielding percentage of .977, which was also the highest on the team. Holly received the best offensive player and pitcher of the year (by coach vote).
“He did awesome for us this year on defense, both pitching and at first base, and he was also a big threat for us on offense,” current Head Coach Evan Teter said. “He’s been fun to coach, and we will certainly miss him in the future.”
“It’s kind of a weird feeling knowing that in a few months I’ll be moved out and around an hour away from home,” Holly said. “But it’s hopefully gonna be a fun experience to meet new people and have a new family.”
“Whenever we have an athlete who has the opportunity to play college sports, it’s a pretty cool opportunity,” Best said.
Holly’s ceremony showed the continued success of the Sweet Home athletic program, providing students with a solid opportunity to take the lessons learned in high school to the next level.