Zion-Benton’s Rmoni Beals plays through the ‘hurt’ of loss after loss — for the present. He’s the future.

Rmoni Beals was among the Zion-Benton players who fell to their gym floor with exhaustion and disappointment when the final buzzer sounded at the end of overtime.

There have been close calls and blowouts among the winless Zee-Bees’ 19 defeats this season. But their loss to Waukegan on Tuesday was a punch to the gut for the standout sophomore guard.

“It hurt,” he said. “We played hard and gave it everything we had.”

Beals certainly left everything on the floor. He scored a career-high 30 points and also had 12 rebounds as Waukegan prevailed 72-69 in a North Suburban Conference game, which ended around the time police said gunshots were fired in Zion-Benton’s parking lot.

“Rmoni gives it his all any time he’s on the court,” Zion-Benton coach Bob Worthington said. “He played almost the entire game at the point and did a great job on defense. He’s just a focused kid.”

Beals said the coaching staff makes sure the Zee-Bees (0-19, 0-10) stay on task during a difficult season.

“The coaches do a great job of keeping us up for practices and games,” he said. “We know if we stay together, good things are going to eventually happen for us.”

Beals is part of Zion-Benton’s young nucleus with sophomores Amare Simpson, Jayden Young-Delk and Kurtis Main.

“Those guys formed a real good freshman team for us last season, and when we brought them up to varsity this season, we knew there would be growing pains,” Worthington said. “We have played a really tough schedule this season with tournaments at Riverside-Brookfield and Proviso West and nonconference games with teams like New Trier and Milwaukee Academy of Science.

“We think we are eventually going to blossom into a good team, but it was going to be tough for that to happen right away.”

Wins and losses aren’t important to Worthington this season. He has a different way to grade the Zee-Bees’ performance.

“We look at different areas in each game in which they improved over the course of the season,” he said. “Like being down five points late in the game like we were against Waukegan and making a comeback to send the game into overtime, instead of losing our composure and seeing our deficit increase. We look at that as a win for us.”

Waukegan (11-13, 3-7) has young talent too. Leading scorer Simereon Carter, who left the game with a knee injury early in the third quarter after scoring seven points, is a freshman. Junior forward Nehemiah Dunn led the Bulldogs with 24 points, sophomore guard DJ Cole scored 12 points and freshman guard Carter Newsome had 11 points.

“Both teams look like they have bright futures because they are so young, and that’s good to see for our rivalry,” Worthington said.

While Beals has become Zion-Benton’s top scorer this season, averaging 12.0 points, his contributions go further.

“He’s really a strong leader for us on and off the court,” Worthington said. “He tries to pick up his teammates when they need a little encouragement, and when things are not going your way, that’s something everyone needs. He leads by example for us.”

Beals said he wants to be a leader for the Zee-Bees now and in the future.

“I think my job is to pick up my teammates to show that everyone makes mistakes,” he said. “I make my share, and I have to improve my ballhandling to get better. So that’s what I try to tell them … to work hard and try to get better.”

Darren Day is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.