Huntington Beach softball coach Jeff Forsberg notches 300th career win
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Huntington Beach softball coach Jeff Forsberg had his daughter hanging around the diamond on Thursday before a milestone win.
Following the Oilers’ dominant 14-4 victory over visiting Edison, he found himself surrounded by members of his ever-growing family.
Forsberg’s coaching staff and players brought out a banner to celebrate his 300th win with the program, a moment he tried in vain to make about them.
“Coach Jeff is a very family-[oriented] guy, and he’ll always put us before himself,” said Huntington Beach third baseman Tea Gutierrez, a Jacksonville State commit. “I think him getting his 300th win today was just an amazing feeling for him. … I think we just love him so much, and he’s literally like our second dad for each and every one of us.”
Forsberg, 60, recently became a grandparent for the first time when his daughter, Ally, gave birth to her son, Elijah. He remarked that he feels “old,” but he is counting down the days to coach his grandson.
That’s the kind of commitment that his players have been able to expect during his tenure with the program.
“I just feel that I’m at a stage in my life [where] I just want to give back to the kids,” Forsberg said. “We have a thing that says, ‘Give me four years, I’ll give you 40.’ I truly try to stay with it. It’s just something I try to do with these kids.
“They play here for four years, and then I’m in it till the end. They’re all mine. I treat them like they’re all mine. Seriously, I do. I had one daughter, and now I have hundreds. It’s awesome.”
It’s an outlier of a group taking the field these days for Huntington Beach, which has for so long held the distinction of putting true shutdown pitchers in the circle. Grace Uribe (San Diego State) and Zoe Prystajko (Stanford) gave the Oilers a chance in a lot of games.
Huntington Beach (12-5, 3-2 in the Sunset League) is now hitting at a prolific clip, and the Oilers’ offense is averaging 8.6 runs per game.
Right fielder Maleah Humble set the tone with a stand-up triple, scoring on a ground out by Gutierrez to take a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
The floodgates opened thereafter, as the Oilers sent 11 batters to the plate in the second inning and a dozen more in the third.
Zariah Billinger doubled to lead off the second, followed by successive singles from Taylor Carlson, Emma Johnson and Willow Kellen. The rally was highlighted by an opposite-field grand slam to right field by Gutierrez to stretch the lead to 7-0.
“It felt amazing,” said Gutierrez, who drove in six runs in the contest. “I just wanted to focus on landing and being on time. I just focused on timing up the pitcher beforehand.”
Huntington Beach, aided by three Edison errors, struck for seven more runs in the third, Carlson’s two-run double providing the only extra-base hit of the frame.
The Oilers combined for 13 hits in four innings, as the game was called with the mercy rule in effect when Traci Ann Mori — in the game as a reserve — gloved a sharply hit ground ball at second base and threw out Aubrey Sprigonardo with the bases loaded for the final out.
Cali Bennett, Humble, Bree Carlson, Morgan Drotter, Billinger and Johnson each drove in a run. The top eight hitters in the Oilers’ order had at least one run batted in.
Johnson had a game-high three hits, while Drotter, Billinger and Taylor Carlson each had two hits.
Humble also made a diving catch in the right-center-field gap to rob Hannah Stolba of extra bases in the fourth inning.
“We were so excited for him,” Humble said of Forsberg’s milestone win. “It’s crazy to see how far he’s come, especially because my sister [Ameryn] went here. It’s just crazy to see. Three hundred’s a lot.”
Juliette Foultz, a freshman right-hander, allowed two runs over four innings to earn the win.
Edison (8-12-1, 3-4) pushed two runs across in the third inning. Aubrey Catron forced in a run when she was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, and Elina Garcia grounded out to bring home another run.
In the fifth inning, Kaila Arakaki scored on Garcia’s single to center, and Sophia Hannappel crossed the plate following a single through the right side of the infield by Savannah Fisher.
A seven-team Sunset League will receive four automatic berths into the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Los Alamitos (11-9, 6-0) is first, followed by Marina (10-11, 4-2) and Huntington Beach.
Edison is a half game back of Fountain Valley (11-9, 3-3) for fourth in the league standings. Chargers coach Jeremy Barnes indicated he would rather not press his team’s luck in having to hope for an at-large berth.
“Unfortunately, it’s not the first time I’ve been in a predicament in the league, especially with the previous way it was organized with [the] Surf [League],” Barnes said. “It was the top two from each group that went. The thing is Division 1 programs have a lot better chance of getting at-large berths.”
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