CHESHIRE—Great pitchers put up numbers. Special pitchers leave behind memories.
And over the past two seasons, few have created more unforgettable moments than Cheshire ace Jenica Matos.
After leading the Rams to a second consecutive Class LL state championship and helping complete an undefeated 27-0 season, Matos has been selected as the CT Softball Blog’s Diamond Awards “Pitcher of the Year.”
The numbers alone made the decision easy.
The St. John’s-bound senior finished her final high school season with 405 strikeouts and allowed just two earned runs in 179 innings for a 0.08 ERA. During Cheshire’s state tournament run, she struck out 73 batters in 33 innings and did not allow an earned run, according to GametimeCT. She capped her career with a one-hit, 15-strikeout masterpiece in a 2-0 victory over Southington in the Class LL championship game.
But numbers only tell part of the story.
“Jenica Matos is just a special, special kid and player,” Cheshire coach Kristine Drust told reporters after the state championship game. “She defines what a competitor is. If we are talking about sports and elite competitors, we are talking about Jenica Matos.”
Drust’s praise wasn’t limited to June.
Earlier this spring, speaking with the CT Softball Blog, the veteran coach described what separates her ace from so many others.
“Her spin continues to get tighter every year,” Drust said. “But what separates her is she’s just stayed hungry. She wants more. She’s not OK with what she’s done and she’s focused on what she still can do.”
That relentless pursuit of improvement was on display all season as Cheshire never lost a game and finished wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team in both the CT Softball Blog Players’ Top 10 Poll and the GametimeCT Top 10 rankings.
Along the way, Matos became one of the state’s most dominant and dependable performers. Her 26-strikeout effort in a 12-inning state semifinal victory over Darien will likely be remembered as one of the greatest postseason pitching performances in Connecticut history.
National attention followed.
Much of it centered around the fact that Matos is legally blind because of Stargardt disease. As first reported by the CT Softball Blog during her junior season, Matos has dealt with the condition since childhood. This spring, the story reached a national audience, but those who have watched her throughout her career understood what Drust said all along: her talent deserved to be the headline.
“You would never know,” Drust told GametimeCT. “And that’s what makes it even more spectacular.”
Matos herself has never wanted sympathy or excuses.
“I’ve been working in the offseason nonstop, lifting, conditioning, pitching,” she told GametimeCT this spring.
The work showed.
Back-to-back state championships.
An undefeated senior season.
Four hundred and five strikeouts. More than 1,000 for her career.
And perhaps most importantly, the respect of everyone who stepped into the opposite dugout.
Because while the numbers were extraordinary, what made Jenica Matos the CT Softball Blog’s Pitcher of the Year wasn’t simply that she dominated.
It was that everyone knew she was coming.
And nobody could stop her.
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