Brian Lewis/The Gazette Northwest senior Emily Forst is the 2011 All-Gazette softball Player of the Year after finishing with a .540 batting average, five home runs and 27 RBI.

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High school softball is a pitcher’s game. The best teams have the best arms, making it difficult for position players to get noticed.

Emily Forst spent half of every game hidden behind a catcher’s mask, playing for an anonymous team. Yet everyone in the county knew exactly who she was.

“That catcher from Northwest, Forst; man, she could play,” Sherwood coach Pat Flanagan said.

Few people dared run on Forst, set to play on scholarship at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County next spring. She caught seven of nine runners bold enough to test her arm.

Perhaps even more impressive than her defensive statistics this spring .990 fielding percentage with just one passed ball was what she did with the aluminum. Forst finished with a .540 batting average, five home runs and 27 RBI.

“What isn’t mentioned is how hard and far she hit the ball,” Northwest coach Kevin Corpuz said. “Her home runs and triples were monster shots and off the top pitchers in the county.”

Forst’s numbers also came against the best in the state, like 4A semifinalist Montgomery Blair, region runner-up Sherwood and region semifinalist Gaithersburg.

jbeekman@gazette.net