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Lincoln-Way East's Alex Storako is the Herald-News' 2018 Softball Player of the Year. After being involved in an epic pitching duel in the 2017 IHSA Class 4A championship game against Oak Park and River Forest’s Chardonnay Harris in which the only scoring was a home run by the Huskies’ Mariah Scott in the seventh inning, Lincoln-Way East’s Alex Storako hoped to lead Lincoln-Way East back to state and a better outcome this season. But things definitely didn’t go to form throughout Illinois softball in 2018, as was evidenced by the fact that unheralded Rock Island won the championship, and three of the four finalists were making their state debuts, including runner-up Plainfield North. While Storako and the Griffins seemed poised to make a serious run at a third state title-game appearance in the past four years, a team that entered the playoffs with a .500 record got hot when it counted and upset those plans. In the Joliet West Sectional finals, dark horse Minooka made the most of a few breaks that came its way to score three times in the third inning and went on to pull off a 3-1 stunner over the Griffins, who entered the contest with a 29-1 record. (Eric Ginnard)
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Despite seeing her and her teammates’ season end earlier than anticipated, Storako closed out her final high school season with impressive numbers that definitely made a strong case that she was among the top players in Illinois during the 2018 campaign. She went 20-2 and allowed only 14 earned runs in 128 2/3 innings for an 0.76 ERA while striking out 255 batters. At the plate, she batted .439 with 11 doubles, five home runs and 31 RBIs while having a .780 slugging percentage and a .495 on-base percentage. Those statistics helped her earn first-team all-state honors in Class 4A for the second year in a row. For her efforts in helping to make coach Elizabeth Pawlicki’s Griffins one of the state’s best teams throughout the 2018 season, Storako is a repeat winner as The Herald-News Softball Player of the Year. In 2017, she shared that honor with her catcher, Christine Malito.
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“I thought that I had a really good year, but I wish that it would have ended differently,” Storako said. “All I wanted to do was to keep improving, and I think I improved both mentally and physically from my junior year, which was awesome. “We knew that this season was going to be a good one from the start and then to eventually be 29-1 going into the sectional finals was really an accomplishment in itself. I give a lot of credit to our pitching coach, coach [John] Van Gennep, who called nearly every pitch and was just all in it. I just wished that we had stayed focused and took it pitch-by-pitch more. That last game really was a heartbreaker.” As she looks to make further improvements, Storako has raised the bar even higher since she’ll continue her career and academic studies at the University of Michigan. She’ll play for Hall of Famer Carol Hutchins, who has led the Wolverines for 34 years and ranks as the winningest softball coach in NCAA history.
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“I’m really excited about the future and being able to play for Coach Hutchins at the University of Michigan,” Storako said. “It’s just really a dream come true and I’m really excited to be there as I continue to get better.” After competing at Bishop McNamara for the first half of her high school career, where she earned second-team all-state honors in Class 3A in 2016, Storako made an impressive debut for the Griffins in 2017 by going 22-3 with an 0.86 ERA and 289 strikeouts in 1781/3 innings. She hit .419 with eight doubles, four homers and 35 RBIs. “Just being on the varsity for all four years really helped me,” Storako said. “It helped my maturity not only physically, but also emotionally. Just being in that kind of setting every year really helps you as a player to grow. And it also helped me in passing down that kind of mentality to the younger girls, and I think that helped us during the past two years in having girls who really stepped up in certain situations.”