- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 435,591
- Reaction score
- 44
CHESHIRE – In her first month of her first full season as the starting pitcher for the Cheshire softball team, Jenica Matos threw a no-hitter against Southington, one of the state’s top teams of the last decade.
Matos was only a sophomore. She ended the season with her team in the Class LL state championship game, where the Rams lost to Fairfield Ludlowe, 3-2, in 10 innings. She had 343 strikeouts in 168 innings and a 0.91 ERA.
Nothing about her demeanor on the mound or the way she dominated games last year would make anyone think there was anything different about Matos. But if you looked closely, you would see that there were black markings in the middle of the Cheshire catcher’s light-colored mitt. That Cheshire pitching coach Kelly Hennessey wore florescent yellow gloves and a black outfit when she flashed pitching signs to Matos during the game.
That’s because Matos, now a junior for top-ranked Cheshire, is visually impaired. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic disorder that causes central vision loss.
“I would have never known,” Cheshire coach Kristine Drust said. “I don’t think anybody would ever know. She pitches with dominance and confidence, just complete control out there. You would never know she’s dealing with adversity every pitch. She’s an absolute gamer.
“Some people might think it’s something that holds her back; I actually think it might propel her forward.”
Drust bought the Cheshire catchers black mitts this year; they also wear white chest protectors. Matos can see the contrast of the mitt against the lighter background. But she can’t see details.
Because she’s been pitching essentially since she was almost 6 years old, Matos can tell where the ball is going to go when it leaves her hand.
“It’s just muscle memory,” Matos said. “Me and my pitching coach work on it all the time, like when I release the ball, I should know where the ball’s going.
“The majority of the time, I do know where the ball’s going to go after I release it. Wherever my release point is, I can tell.”
And she can also tell where the ball will be hit.
“You’ll see her at times in the field, she’ll move the fielders,” said her mother Becky Matos, a former college softball player. “She knows where the ball is going. She’s got such muscle memory, she knows if she releases it down the middle she better get her glove up. She’s been taught not to put the ball down the middle. She’s been taught to work her corners.
“(Her pitching coach) is big on that because she doesn’t want her to get hurt. They work constantly, corners, up, down, where you release that ball is where it needs to be.”
Matos’ confidence and her presence on the mound also help her.
“Her speed of her delivery is definitely something that’s tough on hitters,” Drust said. “How she moves, how she controls her circle – it’s intimidating. How she receives the ball back from the catcher. She’s just in control.”
Start in the sport
Matos started playing softball when she was 5. She bypassed tee-ball and went straight to the town recreational league. Everybody wanted to pitch. But Matos was the only one who got up on the rubber and threw a windmill pitch.
“I was like, ‘Where the heck did she learn that from?” Becky said. “She was five. Almost 6. I looked at my husband and I said, ‘I can work with that,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, brother.’
“She started pitching with me in the yard. She’s like, ‘Mom, I like it.’”
At age 8, Matos started to play travel ball, and she started working with a pitching coach when she was 9. Around age 12, she started struggling to hit. She had always been a top hitter, batting third or fourth in the lineup, but now she was striking out.
Her parents thought maybe she needed glasses. So off she went to the eye doctor and was fitted for glasses, but the strikeouts continued. So they went back to the eye doctor. Maybe the glasses weren’t strong enough.
After a detailed exam, the doctor sent the family to a specialist at Yale. There, they were informed that Jenica had Stargardt disease and that she was losing her central vision.
Becky tried not to cry.
“I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’” Becky said. “She’s not really understanding what he’s saying. I’m trying to wipe these tears away from my eyes because I’m like, ‘What the hell are you telling me? Are you telling me my daughter is going to be blind?’
“He said, ‘Jenica, is everything blurry?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘OK. Did you notice it?’ She goes, ‘Yeah.’ She looked at him and said, ‘I thought it was because I was growing up and my eyes were growing.’”
Said Jenica: “I was usually a good hitter and then I started striking out more; the ball started to get kind of fuzzy, I guess you could say. I thought it was normal, that everyone goes through it.”
There is no cure, although when Jenica turns 18, her mother said she could get into a stem cell trial that “could be promising.”
Becky said Jenica, who has 20/100 vision when she’s wearing glasses, has been in a clinical drug trial for the last three years, and for the last year, has been taking a drug that could help slow the disease. The family doesn’t know if she got a placebo or the actual drug the first two years.
“Since I got diagnosed, it’s gotten worse,” Jenica said. “But as of now, the past year or two, it’s kind of stayed the same.”
The one question they had for the doctor: Could Jenica still play softball?
“He said, ‘As long as she is safe and she is never in danger, she can play,’” Becky said.
‘She’s a beast’
Jenica has peripheral vision; when she talks to someone, she looks sideways at them. She wears polarized sunglasses most of the time so she can see the ball better and also because the sun could cause further damage to her eyes.
She has good reflexes and can field grounders; pop-ups are sometimes harder to see because the ball is suspended in the sky.
“I’ve seen some shots come back to her and she makes it look so smooth,” Hennessey said. “Sometimes with fly balls, because of sunlight or the sky, that could be tricky for her. But our infield does a really good job of communicating with her. They really talk. We have veteran catchers. Ground balls, she’s flawless.
“Some teams, they think they can bunt on her. She’s not going to miss that ball. She’s a beast. She’s one of the grittiest pitchers I’ve ever worked with and I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Barb Reinalda, a former pitcher for the Raybestos Brakettes who is in the USA Softball Hall of Fame, has been Jenica’s pitching coach for the last five or so years.
“When we first found out about (her visual impairment), we worked a lot on how the ball feels coming out of her hand, so she has a really good idea when she throws it down the middle of the plate – my theory is you throw it down the middle, it comes back up the middle,” Reinalda said. “That’s a lot of what we worked on.”
Because she already had the muscle memory, she could still pitch effectively.
“As far as pitching goes, she’s very very solid,” Reinalda said. “She’s worked very hard basically from the time she was 10 and she’s very driven. She’s not afraid to put in the work; that’s what I’ve said to the colleges who have contacted me, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is her work ethic.”
The main thing Jenica said she wanted to improve on this season from last year was walking batters.
“I had a lot of walks last year, which was bad,” Jenica said. “That’s what we’re working on cutting down this year, so I don’t have (to throw) as many pitches.”
In December, Jenica made a verbal commitment to play at St. John’s. The family hadn’t talked publicly about her vision impairment but many of the college coaches knew, and the family explained everything to all of the coaches on their visits.
“St. John’s is like, ‘We will do whatever you need,’” Becky said. “They have been very supportive.”
Jenica said she’s excited to go there because she has friends who are going to play there.
“I loved the coaches, the girls were super nice,” she said.
She would like to study occupational therapy or become a kindergarten teacher. But she’s still young. There is a season ahead of her, and then her senior year.
While she can play softball, there are things that frustrate her that she can’t do. She doesn’t hit anymore, except sometimes in junior varsity games. She misses hitting.
She also can’t get her driver’s license.
“It’s kind of hard because all my friends drive,” said Matos, who is 16.
In school, she can’t see anything written on the board, but teachers and classmates help her out with notes.
“It’s how I live every day, so it doesn’t really affect anything much … well, it affects a lot,” she said. “But to me, it doesn’t feel like there’s that much affected.”
Cheshire outfielder Ava Pearson has played softball with Jenica since she was 8 years old.
“Seeing her progress, even with what she’s going through, she’s shown no sign of it affecting her at all,” Pearson said. “It’s so inspiring.
“We don’t really talk about it much. She’s always found ways to work through it, knowing she has all of us to help her out if she needs it.”
Part of that is just the way Jenica is, part of it is the Cheshire team ethic that Drust has instilled in her players.
“I don’t really talk about it too much because I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” Jenica said. “It’s just the way I live.”
Continue reading...
Matos was only a sophomore. She ended the season with her team in the Class LL state championship game, where the Rams lost to Fairfield Ludlowe, 3-2, in 10 innings. She had 343 strikeouts in 168 innings and a 0.91 ERA.
Nothing about her demeanor on the mound or the way she dominated games last year would make anyone think there was anything different about Matos. But if you looked closely, you would see that there were black markings in the middle of the Cheshire catcher’s light-colored mitt. That Cheshire pitching coach Kelly Hennessey wore florescent yellow gloves and a black outfit when she flashed pitching signs to Matos during the game.
That’s because Matos, now a junior for top-ranked Cheshire, is visually impaired. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic disorder that causes central vision loss.
“I would have never known,” Cheshire coach Kristine Drust said. “I don’t think anybody would ever know. She pitches with dominance and confidence, just complete control out there. You would never know she’s dealing with adversity every pitch. She’s an absolute gamer.
“Some people might think it’s something that holds her back; I actually think it might propel her forward.”
Drust bought the Cheshire catchers black mitts this year; they also wear white chest protectors. Matos can see the contrast of the mitt against the lighter background. But she can’t see details.
Because she’s been pitching essentially since she was almost 6 years old, Matos can tell where the ball is going to go when it leaves her hand.
“It’s just muscle memory,” Matos said. “Me and my pitching coach work on it all the time, like when I release the ball, I should know where the ball’s going.
“The majority of the time, I do know where the ball’s going to go after I release it. Wherever my release point is, I can tell.”
And she can also tell where the ball will be hit.
“You’ll see her at times in the field, she’ll move the fielders,” said her mother Becky Matos, a former college softball player. “She knows where the ball is going. She’s got such muscle memory, she knows if she releases it down the middle she better get her glove up. She’s been taught not to put the ball down the middle. She’s been taught to work her corners.
“(Her pitching coach) is big on that because she doesn’t want her to get hurt. They work constantly, corners, up, down, where you release that ball is where it needs to be.”
Matos’ confidence and her presence on the mound also help her.
“Her speed of her delivery is definitely something that’s tough on hitters,” Drust said. “How she moves, how she controls her circle – it’s intimidating. How she receives the ball back from the catcher. She’s just in control.”
Start in the sport
Matos started playing softball when she was 5. She bypassed tee-ball and went straight to the town recreational league. Everybody wanted to pitch. But Matos was the only one who got up on the rubber and threw a windmill pitch.
“I was like, ‘Where the heck did she learn that from?” Becky said. “She was five. Almost 6. I looked at my husband and I said, ‘I can work with that,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, brother.’
“She started pitching with me in the yard. She’s like, ‘Mom, I like it.’”
At age 8, Matos started to play travel ball, and she started working with a pitching coach when she was 9. Around age 12, she started struggling to hit. She had always been a top hitter, batting third or fourth in the lineup, but now she was striking out.
Her parents thought maybe she needed glasses. So off she went to the eye doctor and was fitted for glasses, but the strikeouts continued. So they went back to the eye doctor. Maybe the glasses weren’t strong enough.
After a detailed exam, the doctor sent the family to a specialist at Yale. There, they were informed that Jenica had Stargardt disease and that she was losing her central vision.
Becky tried not to cry.
“I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’” Becky said. “She’s not really understanding what he’s saying. I’m trying to wipe these tears away from my eyes because I’m like, ‘What the hell are you telling me? Are you telling me my daughter is going to be blind?’
“He said, ‘Jenica, is everything blurry?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘OK. Did you notice it?’ She goes, ‘Yeah.’ She looked at him and said, ‘I thought it was because I was growing up and my eyes were growing.’”
Said Jenica: “I was usually a good hitter and then I started striking out more; the ball started to get kind of fuzzy, I guess you could say. I thought it was normal, that everyone goes through it.”
There is no cure, although when Jenica turns 18, her mother said she could get into a stem cell trial that “could be promising.”
Becky said Jenica, who has 20/100 vision when she’s wearing glasses, has been in a clinical drug trial for the last three years, and for the last year, has been taking a drug that could help slow the disease. The family doesn’t know if she got a placebo or the actual drug the first two years.
“Since I got diagnosed, it’s gotten worse,” Jenica said. “But as of now, the past year or two, it’s kind of stayed the same.”
The one question they had for the doctor: Could Jenica still play softball?
“He said, ‘As long as she is safe and she is never in danger, she can play,’” Becky said.
‘She’s a beast’
Jenica has peripheral vision; when she talks to someone, she looks sideways at them. She wears polarized sunglasses most of the time so she can see the ball better and also because the sun could cause further damage to her eyes.
She has good reflexes and can field grounders; pop-ups are sometimes harder to see because the ball is suspended in the sky.
“I’ve seen some shots come back to her and she makes it look so smooth,” Hennessey said. “Sometimes with fly balls, because of sunlight or the sky, that could be tricky for her. But our infield does a really good job of communicating with her. They really talk. We have veteran catchers. Ground balls, she’s flawless.
“Some teams, they think they can bunt on her. She’s not going to miss that ball. She’s a beast. She’s one of the grittiest pitchers I’ve ever worked with and I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Barb Reinalda, a former pitcher for the Raybestos Brakettes who is in the USA Softball Hall of Fame, has been Jenica’s pitching coach for the last five or so years.
“When we first found out about (her visual impairment), we worked a lot on how the ball feels coming out of her hand, so she has a really good idea when she throws it down the middle of the plate – my theory is you throw it down the middle, it comes back up the middle,” Reinalda said. “That’s a lot of what we worked on.”
Because she already had the muscle memory, she could still pitch effectively.
“As far as pitching goes, she’s very very solid,” Reinalda said. “She’s worked very hard basically from the time she was 10 and she’s very driven. She’s not afraid to put in the work; that’s what I’ve said to the colleges who have contacted me, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is her work ethic.”
The main thing Jenica said she wanted to improve on this season from last year was walking batters.
“I had a lot of walks last year, which was bad,” Jenica said. “That’s what we’re working on cutting down this year, so I don’t have (to throw) as many pitches.”
In December, Jenica made a verbal commitment to play at St. John’s. The family hadn’t talked publicly about her vision impairment but many of the college coaches knew, and the family explained everything to all of the coaches on their visits.
“St. John’s is like, ‘We will do whatever you need,’” Becky said. “They have been very supportive.”
Jenica said she’s excited to go there because she has friends who are going to play there.
“I loved the coaches, the girls were super nice,” she said.
She would like to study occupational therapy or become a kindergarten teacher. But she’s still young. There is a season ahead of her, and then her senior year.
While she can play softball, there are things that frustrate her that she can’t do. She doesn’t hit anymore, except sometimes in junior varsity games. She misses hitting.
She also can’t get her driver’s license.
“It’s kind of hard because all my friends drive,” said Matos, who is 16.
In school, she can’t see anything written on the board, but teachers and classmates help her out with notes.
“It’s how I live every day, so it doesn’t really affect anything much … well, it affects a lot,” she said. “But to me, it doesn’t feel like there’s that much affected.”
Cheshire outfielder Ava Pearson has played softball with Jenica since she was 8 years old.
“Seeing her progress, even with what she’s going through, she’s shown no sign of it affecting her at all,” Pearson said. “It’s so inspiring.
“We don’t really talk about it much. She’s always found ways to work through it, knowing she has all of us to help her out if she needs it.”
Part of that is just the way Jenica is, part of it is the Cheshire team ethic that Drust has instilled in her players.
“I don’t really talk about it too much because I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” Jenica said. “It’s just the way I live.”
Continue reading...
