After Injury, El Modena’s Norton Is Picking Up Steam

Erin Norton is a left-handed pitcher who paints the corners of home plate like an artist.

She started her final year at El Modena with back-to-back no-hitters, but the masterpieces stopped when she sprained her ankle in practice three games into the season.

She was told by her doctor that the sprain was so severe, it would have been better off broken.

Norton, a senior who led the Vanguards into Orange County’s top 10 last year, didn’t play for 20 days and went more than a month without pitching.

Finally, she is back.

“It’s been frustrating,” said Norton, who is 5-2 and has given up one earned run in 57 innings for a county-low 0.12 earned-run average. “I wasn’t out there playing and I had to watch from the bench. I love being out there, being a leader, and it’s hard not to be out there.

“Someone else had to do it for me.”

Norton, who pitched a three-hitter in a 1-0, 11-inning loss after the two no-hitters, returned last week to the pitching circle, where she’s comfortable, but that doesn’t mean she is comfortable.

Her right ankle, the one she lands on, still swells badly. Her return to pitching coincided with a showdown against Foothill, now the top-ranked team in the county. El Modena and Foothill, eight-time Century League champion, shared last year’s title. Foothill scored two runs in the first inning, another in the third, but the Knights can make anyone look rusty.

“I don’t like anything about having to face her--she’s a tough player,” Foothill Coach Joe Gonzalez said of Norton, the league’s player of the year in 1998. “She’s a competitor. If she’s hitting her spots, she’s very tough. . . . She’s a good defender, plays her position really well. And she’s tough offensively.”

Norton was a second-team pitcher on last year’s Times All-Orange County team and is often overlooked as a hitter, but she bats third for the Vanguards and is hitting .457. She batted .411 last year with 17 runs and 16 RBIs but has only seven runs and four RBIs so far this year.

With Norton healthy, El Modena (12-8, 2-1) is capable of pulling an upset or two in the playoffs--if it can score. The Vanguards--and Norton--needed 11 innings to beat Orange last week, 1-0. They needed 10 to beat Villa Park, 3-2, on Tuesday.

Norton, catcher Dustin Vulcan, first baseman/outfielder Lisa Schlueter and third baseman Courtney Kruger are complemented by one junior, one sophomore and eight freshmen.

That makeup has required the seniors to assume the roles of big sisters.

“They have a lot to learn, they’re really young, and they don’t do things as well as I’d like, but they’re just young and inexperienced,” Norton said. “So we [seniors] have to regulate practice more, watch them, make sure they’re doing all the drills.”

El Modena Coach Rhonda Weyer thinks that, in the long run, Norton’s injury might have helped the Vanguards because they had to learn to play without their best player.

“It forced our defense to step up,” Weyer said. “We had to get tougher and get more focused. Our seniors stepped up their game because they know how Erin is and what she brings, especially Dustin.

“It also allowed two freshmen [Andrea Pastiglione and Natalie White] to pitch those games and give them live experience. Offensively, we just were not scoring, and having Erin out there, it could have been the same way--we might not have scored--but you never know.”

Norton, who also plays first base, missed seven games completely, and didn’t pitch in nine before returning.

But it was her initial arrival last season that revitalized the Vanguard program. She had played her first two seasons at Orange Lutheran before she transferred.

It made all the difference to El Modena, which had been 13-13 the year before her arrival and went 22-6-1 last season.

“She’s meant a big improvement to our program,” Weyer said. “She brought so much credibility, both on the field and off the field. She’s definitely a gamer. She loves softball and works very hard.

“She talks a lot to players when they get down. If they’re in a tight spot and they didn’t come through, she’s right there to comfort them.”

Norton has signed with Penn State and is interested in studying criminology. She thinks she would like to be in law enforcement eventually, perhaps as a detective.

“I want to do something exciting, be involved with people,” Norton said. “I don’t want to be stuck behind a desk in an office.”

Or worse, stuck on the dugout bench.