Queen of the Hill : El Camino Real High’s Peck Aims High in Softball and Reaches Her Peak as the Top City Section Pitcher

Even for the low-scoring sport of high school softball, in which a team can have a successful week while scoring just four runs, Chrissy Peck has set a standard for miserliness on the mound.

The El Camino Real High senior surrendered only four earned runs all year , striking out 223 in 187 innings and finishing 23-3 with an 0.15 earned-run average. She clinched the Conquistadores’ third consecutive City Section 4-A Division championship with an 8-3 victory over Chatsworth in the title game and was named City 4-A Player of the Year for the second year in a row.

Peck, who will lead the West team against the East in the Daily News All-Star Softball Game at 2:15 p.m. Saturday at Cal State Northridge, will carry more than an 87-16 career record into the contest.

She also will take to the mound an air of humility that is uncommon among dominating pitchers.

“The thing that’s probably made me so good is all the help I’ve gotten from my pitching coach (Mondo Madrid),” Peck said. “We’ve worked on correcting my bad habits. Sometimes, I get really tense when I get on the mound and try too hard to pitch too fast. I have to remind myself to take more time between pitches, to take a couple of deep breaths.”

This comes as a surprise to El Camino Real Coach Neils Ludlow, one of the West’s coaches.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Ludlow said. “I knew she was a little tight in the title game because she wanted to win so badly, but that is the only circumstance I can think of. When you’re 23-3, it can’t be too bad of a problem. I really don’t think it was a factor.

“Chrissy is very competitive and she is never satisfied unless she throws a perfect game. She is always pushing herself, questioning what she can do to be better. So a lot of things that she thinks she can improve on would not be a problem for anyone else. She is never satisfied.”

While Peck the perfectionist lost track of the four earned runs she gave up this year, she has kept track of shutouts and no-hitters. Pitching in every El Camino Real game this year, she had 16 shutouts, improving on last year’s total of 10, and five no-hitters.

“There are a couple of things that make her special,” Ludlow said. “One is her attitude--she’s always working. The other thing she has is a really good knowledge of the game. She doesn’t throw the ball as hard as she can down the middle of the plate. She throws the ball at the knees, moves it inside and outside, changes speed really well, has a good curve . . . She really works on setting batters up.”

During the fall semester of her freshman year, trouble with the academic load at El Camino Real set her up at Bel-Air Prep the following semester. It wasn’t until a year and a half later when the Bel-Air softball team folded that Peck, who has been playing softball since age 7, returned to El Camino Real.

The timing turned out to be perfect; Peck came back just as Beth Silverman was graduating.

Silverman led the Conquistadores to City titles in 1986 and ’88.

“I really liked the private school and my grades went up, but I had to play softball,” explained Peck, 42-11 in two years at Bel-Air and the 1987 Southern Section Small Schools Player of the Year. “Things worked out well for me.”

The next move the 5-foot-6 right-hander will make is to Barry College, a small Division II school in Miami.

“The coach recruited me last summer, I took a trip out there, and I really liked it,” Peck said.

The downside to Barry is that Peck probably will be stuck again with high expectations.

“Everyone thinks you should win all the time,” Peck said.

As long as she continues to be her harshest critic, Peck should get along just fine.