At plate and on mound, no stopping Norton

Oak Forest sophomore pitcher Emily Norton doesn't try to strike batters out. Seriously. "I just try to pitch where I'm supposed to," she said. "If they hit it, they hit it. If I strike them out, it's great.

"I just want to win the game."

They didn't hit it very often. Norton finished the 2009 campaign with 343 strikeouts, giving her 601 over two varsity seasons.

As for wins, she had 29 this season, the best total in the Southland. The last of those claimed the Class 3A state title for the Bengals and capped a season in which Norton emerged as the 2009 SouthtownStar Softball Player of the Year.

It helped that Norton posted a .479 average from the leadoff spot in Oak Forest's batting order. But her offense was merely a footnote to her pitching dominance.

During state finals weekend, Norton faced 10 innings where the opposing team had baserunners. Nine of the threats ended with strikeouts.

She had the savvy and the look of a veteran. It wasn't a trick of light.

"I do feel so much older than a sophomore," Norton said. "I feel like I've been on varsity my whole life."

It wasn't that long ago that Norton was throwing a sock ball in the hallway of her home to either her dad or her older sister, Carly. They became a battling battery.

"My sister was a catcher," Norton said. "I wanted to be a pitcher because I loved how the motion was, and that the pitcher was the leader on the field.

"We practiced together. Carly was always a tough girl and I was kind of like the little girly-girl. She definitely roughed me up and helped me along the way with softball."

Carly Norton, who gained a lot of diamond experience as a Little League baseball catcher, starred all four years on the varsity at Oak Forest. As a senior in 2008, she was able to catch her little sister, who was brought up to the varsity as a freshman.

"In a way I was surprised, but I knew Diana Pickrum was gone, so I knew they needed another pitcher to go along with Ashley (Asztalos)," Norton said.

"I worked as hard as I could to make varsity because my sister was on the team. I wasn't going to take anything less than varsity. I was going to work my butt off until I got there."

She was supposed to share the pitching duties with Asztalos, but the plan changed when Asztalos injured a shoulder during practice and had to undergo surgery.

Suddenly, it was all Emily.

"I felt like a freshman when some of the girls would step to the plate and they were just, like, huge to me," Norton said. "I definitely wasn't used to it, and knew to be careful pitching to them because they had a lot of strength to hit the ball hard.

"Coaches on other teams would sometimes get to me. They didn't know who I was and I was used to my team knowing who I was. And they'd say, 'Oh, look at the new kid ... ' "

Norton introduced herself time and again during a brilliant campaign in which she posted a 1.30 ERA, threw seven shutouts and struck out 258. The Bengals advanced to a supersectional for the first time in school history.

Bengals coach Paige Stryczek, a four-year varsity player at Stagg in the mid-1990s, had no qualms about handing the pitching duties to a freshman.

"I'm a believer that a 14- or a 15-year-old girl can handle pressure situations," Stryczek said. "When you're young, you have the advantage of not knowing the ramifications of everything. Sometimes you're naive, and that actually helps.

"I think 15-year-olds can hang with the big kids on the softball field."

Norton did more than hang with them. She was named Gatorade's Illinois Softball Player of the Year, in part because she was a two-way threat.

As a freshman, Norton batted .392. This season, she kick-started the offense with nine doubles, 17 runs and 20 RBI.

"I was surprised. It was pretty exciting," she said about leading off. "Sometimes I'll be frustrated from my last at-bat, but I really try to let it blow off before I get to the mound. Those are two completely different things."

Norton, mostly a straight fastball pitcher as a freshman, developed a better ability to spot it as a sophomore, and also added an effective changeup to her repertoire.

"She did. She absolutely did," Stryczek said. "She's made huge strides since last year.

"She came in as a freshman and did well as a freshman. I think she learned a lot from her sister last year, and I think she came back knowing what it takes to be a varsity softball player."

Now she's a state champion with a lot of varsity tomorrows ahead.

"I can't wait to see what's to come," Norton said. "We've made it so far, made school history. I know we're going to be a great team every year and meet our goals."