Berke Happy to Assist as ‘Crossing Machine’ : Girls’ soccer: Senior leads talent-laden El Toro in assists. But sometimes she feels overshadowed by Chargers’ top scorer.

Deep in the recesses of Shawna Berke’s memory is a scary scene:

Berke, the goalkeeper for her American Youth Soccer Assn. team, is standing in the rain in a mud puddle between Shawn Viloria and the goal.

“I was frightened any time anyone came down the field at me,” Berke said. “But it was Shawn. That was only the second year I had known her and she was already better than everyone else.”

Flash to the present and Viloria, the leading scorer in the Southern Section Division 4-A is still better than the others. But Berke is also a force for the El Toro girls’ soccer team, the defending 4-A champion.

Berke has scored nine goals, which is fourth on the team and 30 fewer than Viloria. However, she leads the team in assists with 22.

Berke, who was a third-team all-division selection last season, uses her speed to run down passes from her left-halfback position and has an uncanny knack for crossing the ball over the middle. It’s in these situations that she gets most of her assists.

Berke had two assists in each of the Chargers’ first two playoff games, an 8-0 victory over Lakewood St. Joseph and a 5-0 victory over Edison.

“She’s a crossing machine,” El Toro Coach Kerry Krause said. “She’ll take the ball down the line and she will cross it from anywhere on the field.”

Krause said Berke, who runs the 200 and 400 meters for the El Toro track team, doesn’t appear to be as quick as she is.

“I think she has been overlooked in the past,” Krause said. “Players that aren’t flashy don’t get a lot of attention. She’s workman-like.”

Perhaps it’s easy to be overlooked on a team that had the division’s offensive (Viloria) and defensive (Lesli Steinert) players of the year last season. Berke, however, has grown accustomed to her role for El Toro, although she also enjoys the club season because she scores more goals.

“I’ve learned to accept it,” Berke said. “I’ll do whatever I can, even if it means I don’t score as much, to get us into the finals.”

College recruiters haven’t beat a path to her door. She will visit the University of San Francisco on Sunday, but has found that few other schools seem interested.

“I think that is one area that I have been overshadowed in,” Berke said. “When college coaches think of El Toro girls’ soccer, they think of Shawn Viloria,” Berke said. “It’s not very often that two players from one team get that many opportunities.”

There is no bitterness in Berke’s voice, only a hint of disappointment. As two of the three senior starters--Kristen Graul is the other--today will probably be the final game Berke and Viloria will play as teammates.

The two met at age 7 when they played on the same AYSO team after Berke’s family moved to Orange County from San Jose. But the memory that sticks with Berke most vividly is Viloria’s breakaway during Berke’s second year of youth soccer.

Did Viloria score? Berke doesn’t remember. Maybe some things should be left in the past.