PASADENA – Little by little, the La Salle High School softball team inched their way to victory earlier this week.
Piece by piece, the Lancers’ Maddie Herlache, Allie Forillo and Sterling Shuster lent a helping hand in creating the winning recipe.
They might not have realized it at first or even wished to take full credit, but the Herlache-Forillo-Shuster trifecta is a big reason why La Salle is paying a visit to Orange County today.
The top-seeded Lancers will make their second finals appearance in four years when they take on Marymount today at 10 a.m. in the CIF-Southern Section Division VI championship game at Deanna Manning Stadium in Irvine.
For Herlache, she returns where it all began.
As a freshman joining varsity during the playoffs, Herlache soaked in the experience of playing in a finals. Along with senior teammate Katie Tripoli, Herlache was part of the 2006 Division VI championship team that beat Calvary Murrieta.
The senior captain, batting .407 with four home runs, is playing in the final high school game of her career.
Travel ball will help scratch that itch of playing again later this summer and after that it’ll all be over.
Herlache is headed to UC Davis where she’ll major in exercise biology. She won’t play softball at the Division I school.
“I want to concentrate on stuff outside of softball,” she said. “I could walk-on but I want to focus on other things.”
Who could blame her, especially if she gets to go out on top as a champion.
Since she’s been there before, the rest of her teammates will turn to her for direction. Her advice isn’t as complex as one might think.
“Just encouragement,” Herlache said. “The girls sometimes get nervous, including Katie and I, but if we stay calm and relaxed we’ll be fine.”
Herlache is one to know.
When the Lancers trailed 2-0 after two innings in Tuesday’s semifinals against South El Monte, Herlache didn’t flinch.
“I had a feeling the whole day we were going to win, even when they hit a home run I was like `It doesn’t matter because we’re going to win,”‘ Herlache said.
Against South El Monte, Herlache went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. More impressive was how the hits came given the circumstances.
Herlache tied the game at 2 in the third with a two-out, RBI single that scored Shuster. She did it again in the fifth, Shuster was the game-winning run on Herlache’s RBI single with two outs.
“I think that was the difference in the game, the power,” La Salle coach Michael Harper said.
Herlache has been through it all, riding high from winning it all in 2006 to the playoff drought her sophomore and junior seasons when La Salle moved to the much tougher Division V and the Del Rey League, competing against the likes of Bishop Montgomery, St. Paul and Bishop Amat. La Salle finished in the cellar after a 1-7 season in league.
“It was tough especially for the older girls who were used to winning all the time,” Herlache said. “There were some really good teams but I feel if we played them this year we’d do really well because we have a different mind-set.”
It also helps that the Lancers boast one of the area’s most talented pitchers in Forillo, a junior.
One wouldn’t know it by her unassuming, sweet demeanor or infectious smile, but Forillo packs some serious heat. She’s 17-2 this season with eight shutouts, a 1.69 ERA and 189 strikeouts.
She’s taking the pitcher’s circle today and not letting the pressure get to her, despite this being her first playoff run.
“I have to go out there and treat it like any game,” Forillo said. “That’s something I’ll keep in mind while I’m out there pitching.”
Oh, how modest.
If not for Forillo shutting down South El Monte’s Ann Gaber with three strikeouts. Gaber was coming into the game hitting over .600.
“Taking that big gun out of that lineup was the difference,” Harper said, “because if she gets three hits it would have been a different score.”
Forillo allowed six hits but were too scattered through seven innings for South El Monte to build serious momentum.
Forillo’s epic battle in the seventh when she allowed a hit that put runners on first and third tested her resilience.
“She pitched 12 or 15 balls,” Harper recalled. “It was a nice contest between the two and she put the ball in the (second base and shortstop) hole that went into left field.”
Forillo didn’t falter.
She got the next two batters to pop up for the game’s final two outs.
“A lot of pitchers in that kind of situation would have put the ball over the plate,” Harper said, “but Allie came through like a veteran.”
On to the finals.
Perhaps making the biggest improvement has been Shuster, a sophomore.
She broke her right foot in the early part of the season, missing two months and returning in time to start Camino Real League action.
“She’s gotten stronger and stronger,” Harper said. “Because of her consistent hitting we moved her up to the leadoff spot.”
Shuster is batting close to .600 during these playoffs and her clutch performances is evident by her numerous runs scored during these playoffs.
There was also her RBI single against South El Monte that scored Colleen McWilliams who tripled and scored in the third.
When Herlache arrives at Deanna Manning Stadium she’ll have come full circle.
“It’d be great to wrap up our whole high school career here and I know Katie wants it just as bad, too,” Herlache said. “In the summer, we play travel ball but this is our team and it would mean the world to win it all again.”
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