Lake Zurich’s Mattera goes to bat
Grandma Veronica was on Megan Mattera’s mind Tuesday afternoon.
Veronica, an Orland Park resident, grew up in Ireland.
Mattera, Lake Zurich’s senior softball ace and slugger, watched her homer total this spring grow to 4 and her pitching record improve to 11-5, as the Bears amassed 12 hits in an 11-0, 5-inning defeat of visiting Warren.
Mattera allowed only 1 hit, a first-inning single to Warren lead-off hitter Megan Sowa. She struck out five.
But stats took a backseat Tuesday – make that, a trunk – to something bigger, something more significant: cancer. Grandma Veronica Mattera was diagnosed with ovarian cancer five years ago. She’s still in a “batter’s box,” battling a stubborn foe.
The Warren-LZ contest, played in drizzly and chilly conditions, was dubbed a “Strike Out Ovarian Cancer Fundraiser Game.” Teal is the color for ovarian cancer awareness.
LZ players donned teal socks for the game.
“I called my grandma up and told her about the game a couple of weeks ago,” Mattera said. “She was excited to hear about it.”
What thrilled the Miami of Ohio-bound Bear afterward: $755, the amount of money Tuesday’s game raised for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Take a look at that number again. Look familiar?
It happens to be Hank Aaron’s career homer total.
Mattera hammered a 2-run home run to center in her first at-bat against the Blue Devils, driving in junior Kelly Nieses, who had walked.
LZ (13-5, 6-0 in the North Suburban Lake Division) plated 5 more runs in the second. Senior catcher Paige Goldberg and sophomore Kasey Roe each hit 2-run singles, and Maria Schroeder — one of four LZ freshmen on varsity — singled in another.
All 5 scored with two outs.
“We did a great job of making solid contact at the plate,” Bears coach Michaela Towne said, a day after her squad enjoyed a contact-happy 12-0 defeat of Lake Forest. “Lots of line drives up the middle. Driving the ball — it’s something we constantly preach.”
Schroeder tripled home the Bears’ eighth run in the third, before freshman second baseman Carlee Parsons (2-run double) and Neises (RBI) knocked in the final runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Parsons played dazzling defense in the top half of the fifth, filching 2 singles (maybe a single and a double). She raced to her right to backhand a sharply hit short-hopper off Sam Belletini’s bat and got perfectly horizontal — again going to her right — to squeeze a Jill Fox laser. Parsons fumbled the second ball on her return to earth but recovered it in time to throw out Warren’s sophomore shortstop.
Two outs, two robberies.
And not one arrest.
Parsons smiled brilliantly as she trotted back to her position on the home diamond.
It didn’t matter that her uniform had appropriated most of the dirt on the right side of the infield.
“They made some nice plays on defense, to go with their hitting,” Warren coach Carri McGahan said after her clubbed slipped to 12-9, 2-3. ‘’And Megan Mattera … she’s been good for so long.”