1994 LOS ANGELES TIMES : All-Valley Softball Team : Pitcher & Player of the Year : Students of the Game : Jennifer Gould: Actions speak louder than words for El Camino Real High’s gifted right-hander.

Don’t be fooled by Jennifer Gould’s modesty. What she doesn’t say speaks volumes.

Boasting is not in her nature. The El Camino Real senior right-hander doesn’t offer information about herself, yet everyone who knows her is well aware of her many accomplishments on and off the field.

Gould, The Times’ Valley pitcher of the year, will attend Princeton in the fall on an academic scholarship. She is among several valedictorians this year at El Camino Real. She has never received any grade other than an A in high school.

Yet Gould is not a stereotypical egghead. Her kindness, generosity, quiet leadership and quick wit--plus an uncanny ability to pitch to spots with remarkable consistency--make her El Camino Real’s most beloved player.

Gould pitched every inning for the Conquistadores, finishing with a record of 20-4 and a 0.21 earned-run average. She had 175 strikeouts in 164 innings and owned a 8-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Although she has made her mark as a pitcher, she is no slouch as a hitter, either. Gould batted .311 with 19 runs batted in as El Camino Real’s cleanup hitter.

After leading the Conquistadores to their seventh softball title in 10 years with a 4-0 victory over top-seeded San Pedro in the championship game, Gould was chosen City Section 4-A player of the year. Beating San Pedro, which featured two NCAA Division I recruits, was no small feat. San Pedro had not lost to a City team in three seasons before Gould’s three-hit gem.

“She’s been an extra special young lady,” El Camino Real Coach Neils Ludlow said. “In a coach’s career, there are always a few players that you refer to when you talk to the other girls and you kind of hold them up as examples. Jenny is going to be one that I will hold in that esteem.”

Gould seems to prefer to downplay her own accomplishments and favor talking about the friends and family who surround her. She can’t say enough about her teammates. And vice versa.

“Jen is just so great,” said freshman Ramona Shelburne, a teammate and a big fan of Gould’s. “She’s so good at everything.”

This year’s title was El Camino Real’s second in four years. As a freshman, Gould pitched the Conquistadores to a 1-0, nine-inning victory over Granada Hills in the final.

However, as one of only two seniors on this year’s team, Gould recalls her most recent victory as the sweetest.

“It would have been awful if we had lost,” Gould said. “It was really exciting to win it (as a freshman), but looking back, I don’t think I realized exactly what it meant. Now I do. So, it meant more this time.”

1st-Team All-Stars Invited to Times’ Awards Ceremony

Players selected to the All-Valley and All-Ventura County baseball and softball teams are invited to a Times’ awards brunch Sunday at 9 a.m. at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The guest speaker is Rich Hill, baseball coach at University of San Francisco who formerly coached at Cal Lutheran.