CHERRYTWP — Sara Vinca has no idea what her batting average is.

Extra base hits? Not a clue.

Knowing your statistics is taboo for Moniteau Highsoftball players, but it's hard to keep numbers secret when they are as gaudy as the ones Vinca has put up in her senior season.

"What do I think I'm hitting?" Vinca asks, chuckling. "Oh, gosh. I don't know. Around .500? .550?"

Try .692.

Home runs? Doubles? Triples?

"I couldn't even tell you," Vinca says.

Try five home runs, six doubles and seven triples.

Her slugging percentage is 1.231 and she also has driven in 20 runs and scored 29 runs in 65 at-bats.

Those are numbers that would make even Albert Pujols' jaw drop.

"The thing I like about her is you can't play her back and you can't play her in," said Moniteau coach Danny Hindman. "You can't pitch around her."

Vinca has tremendous speed — an asset that turns singles into doubles and doubles into triples.

"And triples into home runs," Hindman adds.

Moniteau's softball field does not have a fence, allowing Vinca to hit the ball into the gaps with her left-handed swing and go off to the races.

That swing is the source of offensive production unmatched in the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference.

Vinca was named the league's MVP for the second consecutive season. She shared the award last season as a junior.

Vinca hit nearly .600 last season. She said she felt like she could do better this year, but didn't set a specific goal.

"I kind of set my goals year by year," she said. "All I wanted to do this year was just get better than I was last year."

"The biggest thing for me is she has progressed every year," Hindman said. "A lot of players level out before their 11th- or 12th-grade years. But Sara did not do that. She's gotten better."

Vinca also put up some impressive numbers as a pitcher. She went 7-3 with a 3.36 ERA with 96 strikeouts in 58 innings pitched.

But she also walked 50.

"My strikeout-walk ratio still isn't all that great," she said. "I was a little disappointed about that."

In year's past, Vinca was surrounded by older players who took the onus of being the team leaders.

Vinca and Larissa Fowler are the only two seniors on the team this season and were suddenly leaders of a very young roster.

The Warriors start as many as five freshmen.

"I was a little nervous because we had five or six spots open," Vinca said. "We had three or four freshmen playing right off the bat, and we got off to a rough beginning of the season."

Moniteau started 1-2, but finished strong, posting a 12-5 overall record. More importantly, the Warriors went 12-1 in the KSAC to claim their third title in four years.

The next hurdle for Moniteau and Vinca is Brookville, their opponent Thursday in the first round of the District 9 Class AA playoffs.

Brookville has been a thorn in the Warriors' side for several seasons, knocking them out of the playoffs.

"That game is so huge," Vinca said. "We've been wanting to beat Brookville for years. We are so pumped up for this."

Because of all the youth on the team, Vinca was also concerned about just how many pitches she would get to hit.

Hindman inserted her in the No. 2 hole to get her a few more at-bats.

"I just played it game by game," Vinca said. "I was trying not to worry too much about the numbers."

Not worrying about numbers is Moniteau's mantra, after all.

"He doesn't want any of our numbers in our heads," Vinca said of Hindman. "He doesn't want our focus to be on how many hits we have or what our stats are. He's always been like that."

Hindman says: "She's been dying to know."

Now she knows, just like everyone she has victimized this season.