Big Swing--and a Miss : Four-Year Scholarship Eluded Bustos Because Canyon Slugger Struck Out on Learning Curve

Hey, Crystl! Where are you going to college?

Until last week, Crystl Bustos had heard the question countless times. It became irritating and occasionally embarrassing.

A senior shortstop on the Canyon High softball team, Bustos is considered by many the top recruit in the area and perhaps the best raw talent in Southern California.

With great range and a monster arm, Bustos has made the left side of the infield a hitter’s graveyard. At the plate, her explosive power, quickness and speed have made her a pitcher’s nightmare.

As a junior, she batted .573, belting 10 home runs, 11 doubles and four triples. She drove in 27 runs, stole 31 bases and was a landslide selection as The Times’ Valley player of the year.

“She’s the most dominant athlete on any level in any sport that I’ve seen,” said Greg Hayes, Canyon’s softball coach. “I can’t count how many times I’ve seen other coaches shaking their heads at what she does.”

Suddenly, Bustos was being courted by two-time NCAA champion Arizona, 1994 runner-up Cal State Northridge, and UCLA, which has the most successful softball program in college history.

But last week, after being academically ineligible for most of the 1995 season, Bustos signed a letter of intent to Palm Beach Community College in Lake Worth, Fla.

Hey, Crystl! Where are you going to college?

Bustos said she would have chosen Northridge or Cal State Fullerton, but she didn’t have the classes or the grades to qualify for a Division I scholarship. She also did not pass the Scholastic Assessment Test.

Two years ago, she had no thoughts of attending college.

“I didn’t have a dream to go to college,” Bustos said. “But everybody told me when I was little that I had the ability to go to college and have my education paid for.”

When it became obvious last season that Bustos could go to just about any school that had a softball program, Diana Bustos, Crystl’s mother, contacted Canyon about Crystl’s academic portfolio.

“I asked her counselor if she was OK,” Diana Bustos said. “She said, ‘Yeah. She’s fine.’

“I said, ‘Well, I hope so. She’s got a scholarship pending. A lot of universities are looking at her.’ ”

But last fall the Bustos family discovered Crystl was far from meeting NCAA standards for college freshmen. She needed to take several “core” classes required by the NCAA. Bustos took six of them last fall, but the academic load was too heavy.

A failing grade in advanced literature and Ds in algebra and government brought her grade-point average below 2.0, forcing her to miss 16 of Canyon’s 26 games this season.

“I didn’t have the study habits I should have had, and it killed me,” she said. “I studied the same as my other classes, and it doesn’t work that way.”

Some coaches at four-year universities, such as Northridge’s Janet Sherman, still recruited Bustos under Proposition 48, which would have granted admission but denied eligibility until she met the entrance requirements.

“I don’t know if it would have been the best option for her,” Sherman said. “You don’t get to practice. She’s a player, and I can see her going crazy right away.”

Few coaches wanted to pass on getting a player of Bustos’ talent.

The second pitch thrown to her this season, Bustos hit for a home run. After sitting out six weeks, she opened with an 18-for-30 tear. She has a .600 batting average, but with six walks and by getting aboard six times on errors she has an on-base average of .833.

“She’s a blue-chip player,” Sherman said. “She’s going to be one of the greats.”

But this is not breaking news. Bustos’ deeds on the playing field have been well-documented. Hayes points to a 17-inning, 5-5 tie against Saugus last year in which Bustos ignited underdog Canyon with a towering home run off All-Valley pitcher Jamie Gillies over the head of the left fielder, who positioned herself far deeper than normal. Hayes couldn’t estimate the distance from home plate.

“The point is, she was very deep, and she went deeper and deeper the next time Crystl got up,” Hayes said.

The next time Bustos batted, she hit a ball nearly as far. Saugus held her to a triple. But when the Centurions failed to call time out after relaying the ball to the infield, Bustos stole home.

From her shortstop position, Bustos routinely fields grounders to the right of second base and has stabbed high bouncers along the third-base line, making long, off-balance throws to first for outs.

Sherman, watching Bustos play for Gordon’s Panthers in a Thanksgiving tournament last year, saw Bustos turn a key double play then win an extra-inning game with a base hit while the other team was trying to walk her intentionally.

The most memorable incident in Diana Bustos’ recollection of her daughter’s feats was when Crystl, positioned at pitcher in a co-ed tee-ball league, was hit in the head with a baseball hit on a line.

“It didn’t even faze her,” Diana said. “Crystl was just waiting for him to come to bat again, so she could get him out.”

The legend has grown measurably since. And so has the anticipation over her college choice.

Fast forward to Bustos’ second game this season, against Burbank. In the first inning, Bustos hit a line-drive single that knocked Bulldog pitcher Megan Lackey to the ground, bruising her hip.

By her second at-bat, Bustos was getting only shin-high drop balls from Lackey. Burbank catcher Kari Conant couldn’t resist a little conversation.

“What college are you going to?” Conant asked. Bustos answered by chopping a 3-and-2 pitch over the third baseman’s head for a single.

Next time up, it was the home-plate umpire’s turn.

“So where are you going to school?”

Bustos mumbled something, then lined a run-scoring single to left.

Two days later, Bustos took a recruiting trip to Palm Beach, a junior college with a new program that offers full scholarships. Last weekend, Bustos put an end to the anticipation by deciding Palm Beach was her best option.

“I just want to go there and get my schooling and do what I can do for their softball program,” Bustos said. “I think I’ll feel more comfortable going to JC. I can learn the study habits, so when I’m in class at a four-year school--with 500 students--I’ll know what to do.”

That Bustos wasn’t pushed in the classroom at Canyon is a sore subject.

“I was appalled with why she was coming home at noon every day last year,” Diana Bustos said.

Said Sherman, who hopes to make Bustos a Matador in two years: “I think she’s been at a disadvantage. When she was a sophomore, she was programmed just to graduate, not to go to college. But she was willing to work. That showed me a lot about her character.”

But if there is blame to be placed, Bustos deserves some of it.

“When I didn’t have the college core classes, everything was kick-back,” she said. “I was going out. But when I had to crack down, it opened my eyes. If I had studied harder, I would have made it.

“But I had to experience this, and I learned from the experience.”