The Preps : Southern Section 4-A Softball Championship : Western Freshman Pitcher Dawn Fowler Calmly Blazes Trail for Pioneers

There is a definite youth movement on the mound at Western High School. Dawn Fowler, a freshman on an even keel, has pitched the Pioneers to the Southern Section 4-A final.

Fowler, who is just 14, will be the starting pitcher when Western (26-5) faces second-seeded Buena (27-2) at 8 tonight at Mayfair Park in Lakewood.

She won the starting job over freshman Beth Queypo, a pretty sound pitcher in her own right with a 10-1 record and 0.35 earned-run average.

The two traded off early in the season until Queypo was hampered by a sore arm and strained groin muscle. Western Coach Debbie Harless moved her to left field, and she has been there since.

“Beth has been a major major part of our team and our wins whether on the mound or in the field,” Harless said. “I just think we have a stronger team with Dawn on the mound and Beth in the outfield.

“My idea all along was to keep alternating them, and the stronger pitcher, the one who kept the hits and walks to a minimum, would probably stay on the mound,” Harless said.

That pitcher turned out to be Fowler, who has shut out Los Amigos, Rubidoux, top-seeded Hart and Kennedy in the playoffs.

Fowler, who is 14-4 with an 0.23 ERA, had 13 walks and 66 strikeouts in 102 innings during the regular season, compared with Queypo’s 47 strikeouts and 20 walks in 80 innings. But it was Fowler’s equanimity that might have won her the starting job.

“In the beginning Dawn may have shown some emotion off and on, but in the last half of the season, she just throws and doesn’t worry about if it’s a ball or a strike,” Harless said. “There’s a difference between playing with emotion and playing without it, and when I say she is playing without it, I don’t mean it in a negative way. It’s a positive thing.

“You’ve heard people say a pitcher gets flustered when the batter gets a hit or the pitcher comes unraveled. If you have a pitcher who doesn’t worry about it, you have a good pitcher.”

Fowler makes it a point to stay unfazed when her pitches aren’t working.

“I don’t get too upset on the mound because then it might distract me from pitching,” said Fowler, whom Harless calls “emotionless.”

Though she was not quite sure she would even make the varsity when she tried out this season, Fowler now has confidence in her pitching, thanks in part to catcher Lisa Sciarrino and Western’s outstanding defense.

“I can trust her to catch all the pitches that I throw,” Fowler said of Sciarrino, the Orange League’s most valuable player.

“She is the backbone of our team,” Harless said. “Just take into consideration that she is dealing with two freshman pitchers, trying to keep them calm and on target and following her pitching signs, and when there is a pickoff going on, knowing the pitchout is on . . . There are a million things I could rattle off about her.”

Sciarrino orchestrates the pickoff as well as any player in the county. She has 24 of them. She leads the team in hits ( 37), runs (15), RBIs (18) and batting average (.415 ) with five doubles, six triples and five home runs. She is part of a solid defensive unit that includes the Pinkerton sisters, Ivy (shortstop) and Missy (third base).

“They are like a vacuum on the left side of the field,” Harless said of the Pinkertons.

Ivy Pinkerton, a senior, was reinstated by a vote of her teammates Thursday after she missed practice Wednesday. She told Harless she would attend the senior prom instead of the championship game tonight, but changed her mind and asked Thursday to rejoin the team.

Harless left the decision up to the team.

“I think it’s right that they go to their senior prom,” Fowler said. “I was hoping they (Southern Section officials) could change the time of the game, but there is nothing we can do about it now. Both the prom and the game get under way at 8 p.m.

“We have gotten this far, and with the kids missing their prom to play, they are going to be up ,” Harless said. “When you sacrifice one thing for another, you certainly want to come out a winner.”

Other Western starters for tonight’s game are center fielder and leadoff batter Tania Sieks, who hit a team-leading .425 in league play, first baseman Dena Petersen, second baseman Collene Conahan and right fielder Cindy Brown.