ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605200033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: jack bogacyzk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Until about 1:50 Friday afternoon, Chrissy Mathews couldn't exactly remember her last hit.
Now, she'll never forget it.
At the NCAA Division III Softball Championships at Salem's Moyer Complex, with Simpson one strike from being one more loss from a quick trip home to Iowa, Mathews paused and tried to convince herself she could do what she hadn't done in almost a month.
She only needed a base hit off All-America right-hander Christy Guidorizzi of defending national champion Chapman. When you're a .215 hitter in an 0-for-14 slump and platooning, making contact can be California dreamin' enough.
``I stepped out and told myself I knew I had the ability to do this,'' Mathews said. ``I tried to go in there with confidence.''
Pinch-runner Jessie Soulis stood on second base with the tying run for the Storm with two outs in the top of the seventh. One pitch would determine which team stayed in the winners' bracket and didn't have to play until today.
In a fast sport in which one run often makes a difference, one pitch can really mean something.
``It was nothing,'' Guidorizzi said of the riser that didn't. ``It was a meatball.''
And just as anyone would expect a metal bat to do to a meatball, Mathews squished it, then coaxed it. Chapman left fielder Kasie Chavez started back toward the fence, and turned, and turned again.
And leaped. The ball was hit so high, it was right out of Harry Caray's vocabulary ... It could be ... it might be ... it is ...
It was a 195-foot home run over a 190-foot fence. The last time anything in Indianola went that high and was that thrilling, it had to have been in the city's National Hot Air Balloon Classic.
``It was probably a ball,'' Mathews said of the two-run homer that gave Simpson a 2-1 victory and a date with Trenton State, a 1-0 winner over Allegheny (Pa.), in today's 1 p.m. opener. ``The umpire had been calling low strikes all day, and this was just above the waist. Right where I like it.''
It was only the fourth homer of the year for the junior third baseman, who didn't have a hit last week as Simpson (31-8) came from the last seed to win the West Regional. She didn't even play in the Storm's 1-0 national tournament opening win over Ithaca on Thursday night.
And if Simpson coach Henry Christowski starts Missy Potts on the mound today as expected, Mathews won't. She plays third when Friday's route-going winner, Kelly Schade, pitches.
``We've played it that way most of the year,'' Christowski explained. ``And Chrissy has been struggling a bit.''
The part-time third baseman and sports administration and athletic training major described her plate plight from a lower perspective.
``I've been in a big slump,'' said Mathews, 21.
Her turning point at the plate may have come Thursday in batting practice when the Storm was forced indoors at the Bast Center on the Roanoke College campus.
Instead of hitting soft tosses, Mathews asked a coach to fastpitch to her head-on. ``I had been pulling my head,'' Mathews said.
Hitting those ragballs indoors, she began squishing them. Maybe that's why the feeling was so familiar a day later.
It certainly wasn't what Mathews ate for breakfast. ``I don't eat breakfast on game days,'' she said.
Her last meal was part of a cheese pizza and Sprite about midnight, postgame Thursday. Just your typical college breakfast.
Mathews really was an improbable hero for an improbable team, in a program that has reached the NCAA regionals in seven of the past eight years, but is making its first appearance in the six-team national championships.
Asked about the last time something this big happened in her life, Mathews took more time to pause than she did when she stepped out of the box before her last swing.
``Never,'' she said. ``I hit a home run last year in the regionals against Buena Vista to tie the score, but we lost in 13 innings. I've never hit one to win a game before.''
It's likely that Mathews will be reminded of the location of her bracket-busting homer every time she goes to work at Bob's Custom Trophies. That's in Indianola ... on Salem Avenue.
``My last hit? It was in conference play. Against Wartburg. In April.''
It was April 21. A home run. Someone had to look it up. For her latest one, everyone only had to look up.
LENGTH: Medium: 87 linesby CNB