THE CITY 4-A SOFTBALL FINAL : DE DOW THROWS HER EXPERIENCE TOWARD A TITLE : Canoga Park Pitcher Has Won It All Except a City Softball Championship

De Dow didn’t get a new car, tickets to the hottest concert in town or a new dress for her 16th birthday.

She got a batting cage.

The gift was a natural for Dow, who has pitched and powered the Canoga Park High softball team into today’s 2:30 p.m. City 4-A final against El Camino Real at Cal State Northridge.

Dow, 18, has started every game for the Hunters during the past three years. She has used an array of pitches that includes a fastball, rise, curve, drop, change-up and screwball to pitch every inning of every game this season. She’s had six no-hitters, and pitched a perfect game against Gardena in the first round of the playoffs. She is also one of the team’s top hitters with a .593 batting average.

With those statistics, Dow seems like a one-person team. But Canoga Park Coach Joey Nakasone insists that Dow has maintained her humility.

“She’s not a prima-donna type,” Nakasone said. “Ask her to do something and she does it. She never questions you. She doesn’t have the type of attitude where she blames the other players. She’s always supportive.”

Dow makes a conscious effort to support her less-experienced teammates, who have committed 27 errors this year.

“I tell them constantly, ‘Don’t worry about the errors,” Dow said. “I’ve never been to the point where I’ve said, ‘I don’t need to do that, I’m so much better than you.’ They’d think, ‘God, who is she? Big deal, she pitches--but look at her attitude.’ ”

Dow is a senior right-hander who will play at Cal Lutheran University next season. For Canoga Park this season, she is 16-3 with an 0.42 earned-run average. She has 226 strikeouts in 119 innings and has walked only 10 batters while allowing 14 runs and 37 hits.

But strikeouts and no-hitters are not Dow’s most cherished memories this season. She is more impressed by the Hunters’ 2-1 victory over Kennedy in the second round of the playoffs. Canoga Park then defeated Banning in 10 innings, 3-2, to advance to the final game.

“I think my happiest moment was when we beat Kennedy,” said Dow, who played on Canoga Park teams that suffered second-round playoff losses in each of the last two seasons. “We’ve never come that far before. Banning was a bonus. But, Kennedy was the big bonus.”

Now only El Camino Real stands in the way of Canoga Park’s first City championship. The Conquistadores, however, are a formidable opponent.

El Camino Real (18-0) has won three straight City 4-A titles, owns a 54-game winning streak and is ranked No. 1 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, which rated Canoga Park No. 7.

Sophomore Beth Silverman, who pitched the Conquistadores to a 3-0 win over Banning in the City final last season, is 18-0, has 149 strikeouts in 127 innings and has allowed only one earned run this season. El Camino Real advanced to the final by outscoring its three playoff opponents, 51-1, and twice defeated the Hunters in the West Valley League, 2-1 and 3-1.

Dow thinks it may be different this time.

“The first time we played El Camino Real, the team heard so much about them that they were dumb before we even got on the field,” Dow said. “The second time we played them we wanted to win even more. Now, we can’t wait to play them.

“I told the team, ‘We don’t have anything to lose. We’ve never come this far.’ The pressure’s more on them. They have a lot to lose. You never know what’s going to happen.”

Neils Ludlow, the coach of El Camino Real, agrees, saying, “I think it’s hard to keep any kind of streak going year after year. We don’t really care who we play. We’re just happy to be in the championship game.

“The pitching is very even. You know De’s going to be very good. She always is. But we might have a better supporting cast all around.”

The Conquistadores will have a balanced effort, Ludlow said. Shortstop Darci Stehlik, center fielder Lisa Mahl, third baseman Debbie Onestinghel, second baseman Stacy Trapp and Silverman are all-league selections.

But Canoga Park might have the advantage the third time around.

“We realize that we can beat them,” Nakasone said. “Our fielding has improved. El Camino’s a team you can’t make mistakes against. We should have beaten them the second time except for errors. It’s more mental than anything else. We’ve played El Camino tough every time. Since we lost that second league game, it’s always been in the back of our minds.”

Dow, too, has pondered the El Camino Real games, playing them over and over again in her mind.

“You tell yourself, ‘If I hadn’t thrown that one pitch, that girl wouldn’t have had the chance to make the error.’ I don’t look back like that anymore because I try to do as much as I can for the team.. There’s only so much you can do.”

In the City semifinal against Banning, Canoga Park committed seven errors, including six in the last five innings of the 10-inning game. Dow, who pitched the victory, tripled and scored the winning run in the bottom of the 10th.

“I’m so used to those situations,” Dow said. “It was tough. Everyone said, ‘Seven errors and you won your game?’ I don’t know how.”

Regardless of today’s outcome, Dow already has enjoyed ample success. And her accomplishments haven’t gone unnoticed.

There is a tarnished bowl resting on a table in Charlie and Ann Dow’s Canoga Park home that holds special meaning. The cup is a reminder of the day three years ago when Sports Illustrated acknowledged Dow in its “Faces in the Crowd” column.

At 14, Dow pitched her team to the Miss Softball America championship of Southern California with her third straight no-hitter. Immediately after the championship game, Dow was driven to Balboa Park, where she pitched her age-group team to a 6-0 win in the final game of a Van Nuys tournament.

When Dow goes to the mound for the final game of her high school career, she’ll be trying to win a City title. She’s already proved that she’s more than just another face in the crowd.