For the third time in the last four years, the Los Gatos High School softball team is reigning supreme as the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division champions.
The Wildcats punctuated the regular season with a 11-1, mercy-rule victory over Mountain View on May 15, avenging their only defeat in league play this year. Los Gatos (18-11) received the No. 7 seed in the Central Coast Section Open Division playoffs and plays at No. 2 seed St. Francis at 3pm on May 24.
“Our goal every year is to win our league and beyond that everything else is gravy,” Wildcats coach Randy Frey said. “We achieved our goal this year. The girls really turned it on at the end of the season, played well and won some key games, so I’m proud of them.”
In four combined meetings with Homestead and Mountain View—the second- and third-place teams in the final De Anza standings—Los Gatos outscored them, 26-4. Talk about dominating your closest competition.
Even though the Wildcats had clinched at least a share of the championship with three league games remaining, they had to navigate one particular landmine that could’ve derailed it all. After losing to Mountain View in the teams’ first meeting on April 17, Frey said captains Addie Sorto and sisters Lily and Robyn Young stepped up in a pivotal way.
“One of the huge pluses from this team was our senior leadership, especially after that loss to Mountain View,” Frey said. “We were kind of struggling a little bit team chemistry-wise, if you will. And there was some finger pointing going on—all that kind of stuff. But the captains really stepped up, worked hard, got the group back together, and got them focused. You can really tell in the second half of the season, a lot of that (issues) sort of went away. We started having better practices and better games. There were a lot of girls on this team that stepped up and contributed.”
Super sophomore Ava Norquist has put up an MVP-type season, recording 137 strikeouts to only 19 walks in 107 innings pitched. At the plate, Norquist has been equally potent. She leads the team in several offensive categories, including batting average (.450), on-base percentage (.500) and hits (36).
“Ava has had a great year,” Frey said. “She’s been hitting fourth all year long and been getting a lot of opportunities with runners in scoring position, but she’s bringing them in. Just very steady and consistent throughout the year.”
Frey was also effusive in his praise of Sorto, who was limited last year after suffering an injury before the season started.
“Addie is a gamer,” Frey said. “She came in healthy this season and ended up hitting .370. She stepped in at catcher for Annika Norquist and did a great job.”
Sorto smashed a two-run triple as part of a three-run second inning in the second game against Mountain View, essentially putting things out of reach. Leadoff hitter Olivia Sickels has been dynamite, leading the team in home runs (six), stolen bases (10), doubles (12), runs scored (25) and slugging percentage (.759).
“Olivia also plays a great second base, is our fastest runner and when she takes a little more controlled swing with two strikes on her, she hits a line drive and gets it over the fence,” Frey said.
In a 5-1 win over Homestead on April 24, Norquist had 10 strikeouts in six shutout innings, while Grace Tucker and Ria Sharma had two RBIs each.
“Ria is another player who is very quietly having an outstanding season,” Frey said. “She’s probably the quietest girl on the team, but she gets up there and has the ability to hit the ball where it’s pitched. She had two big hits in the Mountain View game as well.”
The Wildcats have four players—Sorto, Tucker, Sickels and Ava Norquist—who have recorded 30 or more hits.
“That’s pretty impressive,” Frey said. “It tells you we don’t just rely on one player. We’ve got enough where if one girl is struggling, the other girl can pick her up and be the leader that day. That’s a mark of a strong team.”
Frey is one of the longest-tenured coaches at LGHS, having taken over the reins of the softball program in 2013. This year he put together an ultra-competitive non-league schedule to prepare the team for the Open Division, the premier classification in the CCS playoffs.
Los Gatos beat Monterey and lost to St. Francis, Valley Christian and Capuchino—all A league champions or co-champions who will be slotted in the Open Division.
“Hopefully, having played those games will help us,” Frey said. “The whole point of putting together that schedule was to prepare us to play the Open.”
