As line drives go, it was a scorcher — about hip high on Marian Catholic’s Katie Pollock.
The senior pitcher could have dodged to the third base side of the rubber but stood her ground. Then, with catlike reflexes, she fearlessly reached out and snapped the ball up.
The catch drew quite an applause from her teammates.
“I don’t know about catlike reflexes,” Pollock said, laughing. “I mean, years of pitching and then my mom throwing a Wiffle ball at me to practice my reflexes does that.”
Pollock’s play came on April 26 near the end of Marian Catholic’s 12-4 East Suburban Catholic Conference victory over Nazareth.
As the ace of the pitching staff, Pollock (12-4) has a 1.46 ERA with 136 strikeouts and just 15 walks in 100 1/3 innings.
Pollock, who bats cleanup in the order, is hitting a robust .426 with 25 RBIs for Marian Catholic (16-5-1).
With each season on the varsity, Pollock has helped the Spartans climb the ladder of success. This season, they won their first 11 games, the best start in the program’s history.
“It’s been great to be a part of this program and get it on the path that it is,” Pollock said. “Coach (Nora) Zerante told me when I first got here that we were rebuilding the program.
“All of us, we’ve been working so hard to get it to where it is. I’ve been really enjoying it.”
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Pollock has been Zerante’s pick to click since her first day with the varsity.
“That COVID freshman season, we had a ton of high hopes and Katie was to be a key piece to the puzzle,” Zerante said. “The next couple of seasons, we learned a lot.
“Katie has grown with her velocity and has been our ace in the circle. We rely on her a ton and put a lot on her, but she rises to the occasion every time. She wants to be in. She’s our go-to.”
Every day, every way: Mother McAuley coach Caitlyn Migawa says that finding a “best” game of the season by senior pitcher/infielder Mary Charniak is pretty impossible.
“When we’re looking at the stats, it’s always like Mary went 2-for-3 or 3-for-4,” Migawa explained. “She’s one of those people we can always rely on.”
Such was the case on April 27 as Charniak chalked up eight strikeouts. She went 1-for-2 with a walk, hit by pitch and a run in a 5-1 victory over Downers Grove South.
“She’s the backbone of our team,” Migawa said. “She’s there pitching and we rely on her a lot. When she’s not pitching, she’s stellar at shortstop as well.
“Mary has been a huge part of our team the entire time she’s been at McAuley. She’s a captain this year, but even when she wasn’t a captain, the girls would still look to her.”
The St. Mary’s College recruit is batting .472 with six doubles and 14 RBIs for the Mighty Macs (11-8). She’s second on the team with 10 stolen bases.
In the circle, the right-handed Charniak has 93 strikeouts in 81 innings.
Putting it down: Evergreen Park sophomore Aubrey Walczak needed only to bunt the ball 15 feet to earn her biggest varsity hit.
It came on April 29, with the Mustangs leading Lemont 3-2. Her two-out, fifth-inning bunt off Lemont pitcher Rhea Mardjetko scored Sofie Panatera with the final run in a 4-3 victory.
It also came after sage advice from Mustangs coach Michelle Vucsko.
“She has been our flex pretty much all year,” Vucsko said of Walczak. “But we had a last-minute change and she had to be in the lineup. She is super fast, so we kind of told her if she saw a bunt situation to go for it.
“For her to come up big in that moment was really exciting for her and everyone else, too.”