Kennedy Wins Pitching Duel, 1-0 : Guiza’s RBI Double in the Seventh Ends Canoga Park’s Season

Because of two excellent pitching performances, it took 6 1/2 innings for a run to cross the plate Wednesday at Kennedy High.

And with two outs and one on in the bottom of the seventh, Kennedy’s Kristen Guiza found a De Dow curveball and ripped it to center field, thus boosting the Golden Cougars into the City 4-A semifinals.

“It feels great!” said Guiza, whose double scored Julie Burley from second to give Kennedy a 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Canoga Park.

“I’m really pleased with everybody on this team,” Kennedy Coach Diana Laborde said. “They played very hard and deserved to win.

“This team remained cool even though Canoga Park stopped us a couple of times with very aggressive play. But we’re a very aggressive team that takes advantage of every situation.”

But as high school softball goes, the opportunities to take advantage of scoring situations do not come often.

The game pitted two of the area’s top pitchers, Pauline Madrid (10-3) of Kennedy and De Dow (13-3) of Canoga Park. And it turned out to be a true pitchers’ duel.

“When you get this far into the playoffs, the pitching is always better,” said Canoga Park Coach Joey Nakasone, whose Hunters ended the season 13-3.

“We’re a pretty good hitting team, and we do well against teams that don’t have the good pitching like we do, and like Kennedy does. But when you have two teams of this caliber, it’s a pitcher’s game.”

A pitcher’s game, indeed.

Dow pitched every game this season for Canoga Park, which finished second in the West Valley League. She threw two no-hitters and a handful of one-hitters.

Dow allowed only three hits Wednesday against Kennedy, a hard-hitting team. She struck out 11 and walked five. Her fifth walk, to Burley, resulted in Kennedy’s unearned winning run.

Madrid gave up only three hits en route to her 10th victory against three losses. Unlike Dow, she pitched only 13 of her team’s 23 games. She threw two one-hitters this season and, according to Laborde, has many times come close to throwing no-hitters.

“Madrid doesn’t shoot for no-hitters,” said Laborde, who coached the Golden Cougars to their second straight North Valley League title. “That’s the least on our minds when we go out there. Our minds are on good hitting, good defense and a good win.

“Our emphasis is on a complete and total team,” she said. “I mean, we only lost to Hart because we couldn’t field a squeeze bunt. And they have Samantha Ford, and she is supposed to be the best pitcher in the area.

“I’m assuming we’ll play Banning in the semifinals, and I’m looking forward to that. They have good pitching as well as good defense and good hitting. Banning has a more balanced team than Canoga Park.”

That may be true.

When Kennedy meets Banning, a 7-0 winner over Chatsworth, next week in the semifinals, it will have to balance its attack against Lisa Bautista. The Banning pitcher fired her seventh straight no-hitter and 17th this season.

“When we won the City championship in 1981, they said we could never hit El Camino,” Laborde said. “El Camino was supposed to have the best pitching in City. But we went against their best pitcher and won, 11-1.”

Laborde contends that the team concept, not strong-arm tactics, is Kennedy’s key to success. “We’ve never had a pitcher like that (Ford, Bautista),” she said.

“We’ve got a strong pitcher out there who throws well, plays great defense and is in total control. And we’ve got eight other girls just like that out there behind her.”

Behind Canoga Park is a season that, despite the playoff loss, pleased its coach.

“We lost, but these girls played their hearts outs,” Nakasone said. “I have to give all of them a lot of credit for what they did this season.

“They’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. We are losing only three seniors, and our pitcher and catcher are both coming back next season,” she said.

“Kennedy is a good team and they played well and deserved to win. But I hate to see the season end here.”