Wauconda sophomore Luke Sickmeir, hitting .488 in his debut, seems unstoppable. A blood clot gives him pause.

Chicago Tribune

22-05-2025

Every sports season has ups and downs, but Wauconda's Luke Sickmeir couldn't have expected any of this.
For almost two months, the sophomore outfielder made it look easy in his first varsity season, hitting essentially everything thrown at him and playing spotless defense.
But after having surgery to remove a blood clot from his right arm this month, Sickmeir can only watch as the Bulldogs enter the playoffs.
'This part of the season is the most important, so it's tough to miss that,' he said. 'It's hard to think that I'm done for the season. There's nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is try to heal as fast as possible.'
Additional surgery, scheduled for June 2, will require a roughly three-month recovery period. So the 6-foot-4 Sickmeir, who is also a standout wide receiver, will miss the beginning of football season, if not more.
Sickmeir said he met with the surgeon for two hours Tuesday and felt reassured.
'He was explaining the risk of the surgery, the procedure and the recovery process,' Sickmeir said. 'He said he's done around 250 of these surgeries and about 90% of the athletes who he's operated on returned to the same performance level they were at.'
That's a high bar for Sickmeir. He hit .488 with a 1.304 OPS in 26 games for Wauconda (16-14, 9-8), which is in fifth place in the Northern Lake County Conference and will play Lake Forest in the Class 3A Prairie Ridge Regional semifinals on May 29.
Thirteen of Sickmeir's 40 hits went for extra bases, and he drove in 28 runs despite hitting in the leadoff spot much of the time.
'Knowing it was my first varsity season, I wasn't expecting to be hitting .500,' he said. 'The first three or four games, I hit really well, but I wasn't expecting to keep that up for the whole year. I was just taking it game by game and not worrying about stats.
'Once I didn't stop hitting, that's where the confidence came in, being confident that every at-bat, I'd either get a hit or get on base.'
Sickmeir sets a goal for each game. Getting two hits in the same inning wasn't one of them, but he did that anyway during a seven-run frame in the Bulldogs' 11-10 conference loss to Grant on April 30.
'I led off the inning with a double into the left-center field gap, and then I hit a single into right to drive in the sixth run,' he said. 'That was a pretty fun rally, but it was a shame we lost the game.'
Sickmeir began the season in the bottom third of Wauconda's batting order. But it soon became clear to the coaching staff that he couldn't stay there.
'Kids can play at a high level for a few weeks, but he just kept going and never stopped,' Wauconda coach Shawn Rudolph said. 'He's a quiet, hardworking kid, and his hitting ability has always been there. But he's also been making hard plays look easy out in right field.'
Sickmeir's hitting approach has been pretty simple.
'Early in the season, I was taking a lot of first-pitch fastballs,' he said. 'I kept getting them, right down the middle, so I figured I might as well swing. Now I'm looking for them.'
Sickmeir began to feel soreness in the upper part of his right arm during the weekend of Mother's Day, which included a nighttime fishing outing with Rudolph's son Brody, a Wauconda sophomore who also plays baseball and football.
During Shawn Rudolph's physical education class the next day, Sickmeir mentioned the soreness, and he was sent to the nurse's office.
'It was swollen while we were fishing, but I figured the swelling would go down and it would go away,' Sickmeir said.
Less than 24 hours later, Sickmeir was diagnosed with Paget-Schroetter syndrome, a subset of thoracic outlet syndrome that can cause blood clots in the area underneath the collarbone.
He had awoken that morning looking forward to Wauconda's series against conference champion Grayslake Central. Instead, he prepared for surgery.
'I was concerned and for a time didn't know what would happen next,' Sickmeir said. 'It just kept escalating. But the good news is that once the clot is out, it can't spread.'
The second surgery will address that. Sickmeir said about 70% of his top rib will be removed. A vein can pinch between a segment of muscle and bone, and removing part of the rib will allow blood to flow freely through the area.
Then Sickmeir's recovery will begin. He said he hopes to play football at some point in the fall.
'I'll try to get back as soon as possible without doing any damage,' he said. 'Maybe I can aim for midseason. I'll be doing a lot of physical therapy during my recovery time, but I should be able to do lower-body work this summer.'
Sickmeir is trying to make the best of the situation.
'It's definitely a different perspective watching from the dugout as opposed to playing, and I'm trying to figure out ways I can help out,' he said. 'I realize it was a great season for me, but it stinks that I couldn't finish it off with my teammates.'