Neli Casares-Maher’s mom had cancer twice. Softball helped her through it.
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At 5 years old, Neli Casares-Maher often begged her parents to let her play ball at her local park. They played catch, hit grounders and shagged each ball she crushed into the outfield. But Casares-Maher was disappointed that those same types of plays weren’t replicated in her coed tee-ball league.
“When do we get to play real baseball?” Casares-Maher would ask her mother, Sharon. She wanted to play for something more — hitting off the tee wasn’t enough for someone with her skillset.
Ten years later, during the 2016 season that would end in a state championship for Casares-Maher and Mater Dei (Calif.) High School, Sharon was diagnosed with bile duct cancer and given five months to live. The news was devastating, but Casares-Maher finished out her season at shortstop. She had something bigger than softball to play for.
Sharon would go on to recover after a life-saving surgery, but Casares-Maher came out with a newfound appreciation for softball, and for life itself. As a freshman at SU, her grandfather bought her a necklace that Sharon said symbolizes “counting her blessings.”
Casares-Maher, now a senior, has worn that necklace in every game since her freshman season. She currently leads SU in 10 offensive categories, including runs, hits and batting average. Softball saved her when she was at her lowest in high school, Sharon said.
During the fall 2018, Sharon was diagnosed with cancer once again, this time in her liver. Casares-Maher was thousands of miles away from family in California, and Sharon said it was harder for the SU sophomore to cope the second time. Now, after Sharon’s second diagnosis and recovery from cancer, Casares-Maher steps up to the plate in honor of her mother every game day.
“I think, if she wasn’t playing softball, she probably would’ve been in a big depression,” Sharon said.
Sharon’s first diagnosis came after Mater Dei’s preseason tournament. It affected the whole team, as she was a team mom that was very active in the program.
Tia Meza, Mater Dei’s coach, and Sharon introduced Monday night team dinners that season to keep everyone connected. Every Monday throughout the season, the players and their families gathered at the softball field for a meal. Later on, when another player had a medical issue in her family, the players came together as a family, too, Meza said.
“This group became very close, and they trusted each other completely,” Meza said. “Every time they took the field, they played for each other.”
Casares-Maher was always one of the quietest players on the team, which made it difficult for Meza to fully recognize how she was handling Sharon’s cancer. Meza and the rest of the team tried to make themselves open to conversations for the moments when Casares-Maher did want to talk.
By the end of the season, Sharon’s initial diagnosis that she had five months to live dissipated when she had surgery to remove the cancer.
Mater Dei went on to win the state title that year, its first since 1998. Casares-Maher clinched it for the Monarchs, catching a pop fly in left field for the final out of the 8-2 win over Orange Lutheran. She finished the season as Mater Dei’s best defensive player and was named to the All-Trinity League’s first team.
“They were not the most talented team that had ever set foot on the Mater Dei campus,” Meza said. “(But) because they trusted each other, because they honestly cared for each other, they played at a higher level together.”
Casares-Maher received college offers as a freshman and sophomore, but she took a step back in the recruiting process as a junior. She didn’t have the same motivation as she previously did to find a college until Sharon and her club coaches pushed her back into it.
Shortstop Neli Casares-Maher fields a ball for the Orange against Florida State University. Jordan Phelps | Staff Photographer
With interest from top-tier programs such as Arizona and South Carolina, most of Casares-Maher’s attention had been a result of strong advocacy from her club coaches at the So Cal Athletics. The final step was finding the right fit for her.
“She could win a game in so many different ways, kind of like a Mookie Betts type of player,” said So Cal Athletics coach Doug Myers. “Every time she went on the field, I always knew that she was going to be the best infielder on the field”
But Casares-Maher began her senior year without a commitment. That’s when her batting coach, Ken Briggs, reached out to then-Syracuse head coach Mike Bosch, telling him to extend an offer to Casares-Maher while she was still available.
He immediately showed interest, and Casares-Maher was swayed to move across the country and join the Orange. She made an immediate impact, earning a starting role as a freshman. She was the team’s top slugger a season later, in Shannon Doepking’s first year as Syracuse’s head coach.
But that fall, Sharon was diagnosed with cancer once again. Casares-Maher was away from her family, but her team once again stood by her side.
Following two wins against Herkimer and Siena in a fall doubleheader, with Sharon in attendance, the team gifted her flowers with letters from each of the team’s players attached to it. Sharon said it reassured her that Casares-Maher’s teammates were there for her, just like they were three years prior.
“She has the people and the support system over there, which is so important, especially when it’s your baby and you’re across the country,” Sharon said.