Featured athlete of the week: Stephen Holland

Stephen Holland has been a Cincinnati Reds fan his entire life. Holland grew up in nearby Trenton just minutes away from where the Reds play.
He said living so close allowed him to attend Reds home games regularly, making it easy for him fall in love with the game of baseball.
Now, that passion for the game has Holland producing for another local team that wears the color red–the Sinclair Tartan Pride.
This season Holland is 2-0 as a starting pitcher for Sinclair. In three appearances, he has struck 18 opposing batters while only giving up one earned run. Those highly proficient statistics add up to Holland sporting a 0.64 ERA.
The right-handed pitcher’s most notable victory of the season so far, came against Muscatine Community College during Sinclair’s trip to Millington, Tenn. where he threw 5.1 innings of scoreless baseball while striking out 9.
“It was a pretty big game for us,” Holland said. “I just went in there and shut em’ down. This was actually my first win [as a member of the Pride].”
Sinclair started this season with a record of 11-3, tearing through competition but Holland said even though the season is still in its early stages, the team can’t take their hot start for granted.
“From now on we’re looking for those conference games,” Holland said. “We want to win our conference again, and to go to our regional and win a regional. Our ultimate goal is to go to Oklahoma and go to the World Series.”
He said earlier successes as a baseball player haven’t always come as easy.
“There have been times where I’ve just wanted to quit baseball,” Holland said.
But the support from his family, primarily his father and grandfather, has helped him continue playing at a high level.
Although pitching puts the spotlight on Holland throughout games, he said defense is his favorite part of the game. He said he can’t wait for the chance to make a play on a ground ball or a hot shot up the middle.
“I like to think of myself as an infielder,” Holland said.
Holland is studying Liberal Arts and hopes to transfer to a four-year college to continue playing baseball after his time is done at Sinclair. He said ideally he would like to go play down south, possibly somewhere in North Carolina, but the University of Cincinnati is one of his probable landing spots.
You can see Holland and all the Tartan Pride baseball players as they continue their season on April 4 at home vs. Miami University-Hamilton at 6 p.m. The Pride play all of their home games at Grady’s field in Xenia.