CITY SOFTBALLTHE QUARTERFINALS : Chatsworth Can’t Hit Bautista, 7-0

Hitting a fair ball these days against Lisa Bautista is cause for a little bravado.

Or so it seemed Wednesday after the Banning High senior pitched her 17th no-hitter of the season in beating Chatsworth, 7-0, at Dolphin Park in Carson in the quarterfinals of the City 4-A softball playoffs.

Bautista faced the minimum 21 batters but lost out on her second consecutive perfect game when Traci Atkins reached on a passed ball after striking out with one out in the sixth inning.

The no-hitter was Bautista’s seventh straight, tying a national record she established earlier this season. She can break the record next Wednesday in the semifinals against Kennedy.

In the seventh, though, Chatsworth’s Jill Clemens paid her little respect.

Clemens, who popped out to shortstop and grounded back to the box her first two times up, smashed a line drive that was flagged down by second baseman Debbie Martinez.

“I got robbed,” Clemens said.

That she did, but her’s was the only ball hit solidly by the Chancellors all afternoon.

Clemens wasn’t impressed easily.

“From what I read in the newspaper (about Bautista), I was sorta shakin’ before I came here,” Clemens said. “But when I saw her, it was a joke. I mean, she was fast, I’ve got to admit, but not as fast as I thought she’d be.”

Maybe it will come as some consolation to Clemens that Bautista didn’t throw any fastballs against Chatsworth.

“We got her thinking junk this season instead of fastball,” said John Bautista, her father.

The results have been devastating.

Bautista, whose 20-3 record includes two 1-0 losses, has given up only 16 hits in 162 innings, or less than one every 10 innings. In her 20 wins, she has given up only four hits.

One opposing coach gave away sticks of gum to anybody who could hit a foul ball against her. A fair ball was worth a whole pack.

All of which is great, except that it can get a little boring for the people playing behind her.

“Our minds start wandering and we start playing with the dirt,” said Martinez, a sophomore who had RBIs in the fifth and sixth innings, when Banning scored all of its runs on six hits and four Chatsworth errors.

But Martinez said she “had a feeling” a ball was going to be hit at her in the seventh. And when Clemens lined an 0-2 pitch toward right-center field, she reacted quickly, making a leaping, over-the-shoulder catch.

“I just reacted,” she said. “It’s weird to see anybody hit the ball. I’m not quite used to that.”

She said she was more alert at that point because Chatsworth “started meeting the ball.”

Bautista struck out 12, fanning everybody but Clemens at least once.

Leadoff batter Valerie Arst, who struck out twice and popped to the catcher, called her “the fastest I’ve seen. And the most accurate, too.”

Chatsworth Coach Gary Shair said of Bautista: “She’s the best we’ve seen and we’ve played (top-seeded) El Camino Real and (highly regarded) Kennedy and Canoga Park.”

Bautista’s catcher, Susan Miller, said: “She was really on today. She had a really good outside curve and a good screwball.”

Later, however, she called it “just a regular game for Lisa.”

Which is about what Bautista said.

“I don’t feel I was throwing up to my best today,” said the slender (5-5, 118) righthander, who will leave this morning on a recruiting trip to Florida State. “I seemed to be lagging--sort of slow. But the pitches were working--my riser, my curve and my screwball.”

Quiet and unassuming, she said she is aware of her record and “I’m sort of trying for it, but I feel if I keep thinking about it and try too hard for it, I might just go wild or something.”

If that ever happens, the opposition will really have something to cheer about.

Until then, however, anybody who makes contact apparently has a reason to celebrate.