Mattera propels LZ past Palatine
Two pitches.
Lake Zurich senior ace/slugger Megan Mattera saw exactly that many pitches, combined, in her first 2 at-bats in Thursday’s Class 4A Warren softball sectional semifinal against Palatine.
Pitch No. 1: The Bear struck a frighteningly hard run-scoring single up the middle in the first inning.
Pitch No. 2: In the top of the third inning, Mattera connected for a mammoth home run — her ninth of the spring — to center field.
What could easily be concluded after the long ball: No Doubt is not just the name of an American rock band from Anaheim, Calif.
“We talk, a lot, about pitch selection,” said LZ coach Michaela Towne. “We tell our players, ‘If the pitch is in your zone, swing at it, go for it.’ ”
Mattera’s second swing on a chilly-for-June Thursday put LZ up 3-0.
The Bears, seeded third, added another run in the sixth inning and beat second-seeded Palatine 4-0.
Lake Zurich (23-7) will face top-seeded Fremd (28-5-1) for a sectional title at 11 a.m. Saturday in Gurnee. Fremd, which beat LZ 6-0 on April 7, topped LZ 8-3 in a sectional final last spring.
“Fremd is going to see a different team … a totally different team,” Mattera said, after recalling the teams’ first meeting this spring.
Fremd, no doubt, will see pitches from Mattera, who went the distance in a 3-hitter against Palatine’s Pirates (25-10) and improved to 19-7.
She fanned five and walked three in the shutout.
“She’s got good speed, definitely,” said Pirates senior second baseman Katie Scovic, who thwacked a two-out triple to right-center in the bottom of the seventh inning.
“And,” Scovic added, “she moved her pitches around well.”
LZ freshman second baseman Carlee Parsons tinked a first-inning sacrifice bunt to move lead-off hitter Paige Goldberg to second base.
Third baseman Maria Schroeder, another freshman, singled off senior lefty Danielle Boisvert to put Bears on first and third, before Mattera’s brief — and productive — first at-bat.
LZ, between Mattera’s first two plate appearances, got a run in the second frame when senior shortstop Tabbetha Bohac (3-for-3) stole second base and pinch runner Shannon McPeek scooted home from third base on senior catcher Alyx Ballenger’s throw to second.
Bears freshman Mallory Parsons, who homered twice in Saturday’s 7-1 defeat of Carmel in the Hersey regional championship game, curled an opposite-field double to right field in her first at-bat Thursday and singled in the sixth inning.
Defense also lifted the Bears in the sectional semi. Towne’s crew turned three double plays.
Bohac was involved in two of them. She caught a liner and doubled up a Pirate at first base; later, she fielded a grounder, stepped on second for a force-out and fired to first to end the fifth.
Goldberg, after squeezing a called third strike in the second inning, caught a Pirate attempting to steal third base.
“I thought we were evenly matched,” Palatine coach Jeff Manz said.
“We hit the ball well, had a lot of right-at-’ems. But we also made a couple of mistakes to their best hitter (Mattera).”
Mattera (3-for-3) walked in her third at-bat and capped the Bears’ 11-hit attack with a seventh-inning single.
Palatine senior center fielder Joanne Jablonski walked twice and a made a couple of fine defensive plays. She threw out a Bear at home plate in the sixth and grabbed, while sliding, Schroeder’s sinking liner in the seventh.
Classmate Ballenger deserves some kind of badge for playing in pain all spring.
A torn labrum, in her throwing arm, failed to stop her from donning a catcher’s tools of ignorance. The Pirate used her ailing wing on Thursday to nail two Bears on steal attempts.
“Her arm,” Manz said, “kept us in the game.”
Nine seniors played for Manz in 2011.
He hadn’t had that many on a squad since taking over in 2003.
“It’s sad, knowing this was it for them, for such a great, close group of seniors,” he said. “All of them represented our program incredibly well … played the game the right way.”