SOFTBALL : The Final Chapter : Pitcher Blake-Small Concludes Storybook Career as No. 7 Matadors Open Play at Home in NCAA Regional

If there is a Miss Goody Two-shoes out there, she would be hard-pressed to measure up to Cal State Northridge’s Kathy Blake-Small.

Blake-Small is the Cinderella of college softball pitchers, the Snow White of Division I athletes.

She’s the natural blonde with pearly-white teeth (perfectly straight, of course), bright blue eyes and a disposition sweet enough to produce a cavity. A devout Christian, she never swears, never criticizes, and always smiles.

“She’s a sweet, lovable person who wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Northridge Coach Janet Sherman said.

Not exactly an intimidator, to be sure. Her windup may seem smooth and her deliveries hittable, but something--perhaps a little divine intervention?--makes Blake-Small tough to beat.

“She lulls them to sleep and then she sits them down,” Sherman said. “She doesn’t have the stats of the great ones across the country, but she’s definitely one of the best. She’s on a mission, in her own zone.”

The seventh-ranked Matadors (41-15) are the disciples reaping the benefits.

Behind the pitching of Blake-Small and the hitting of Scia Maumausolo, the Matadors have surprised the masses by winning a third consecutive Western Athletic Conference title and maintaining a top 10 ranking throughout the season despite the loss of eight starters from last year’s team that reached the final of the NCAA Women’s College World Series.

The Matadors will try to keep their storybook season alive this weekend. Northridge plays host to Cal State Fullerton (42-15), Illinois State (45-12) and Missouri (47-17) in one of eight NCAA regional tournaments.

Fullerton will face Illinois State at 12:30 p.m., followed by top-seeded Northridge against Missouri at 3 p.m. The winner of the double-elimination tournament, which ends Sunday, advances to the World Series in Oklahoma City, May 25-29.

Blake-Small (22-8), a senior right-hander who was a third-team All-American selection as a freshman, has re-emerged as the leader of the pitching staff.

Author of 13 of the Matadors’ 21 shutouts, she leads the staff with an 0.98 earned-run average.

This season she joined former Northridge pitchers Kathy Slaten and Debbie Dickmann as the only three Matadors to earn 20 victories in three or more seasons.

But what distinguishes Blake-Small from the other two is that she accomplished the feat in Division I, perhaps the highest level of softball competition in the world.

Blake-Small has taken her place in the record book behind Slaten and Dickmann in nearly every career pitching category. Blake-Small has made 127 appearances, completed 98 games, pitched 780 innings, recorded 392 strikeouts and 45 shutouts.

She takes a career 86-25 record into today’s playoff game and will enjoy every last moment of her career.

“I think my freshman year was the most memorable, but this year is the most fun I’ve ever had,” she said.

And when this playoff run ends--either at Matador Diamond this weekend or Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City next week--Blake-Small will call it quits.

After 13 years of throwing 200 pitches a day, she will leave the game without regret and probably never play again.

“I’m very content with my softball life,” she said. “I think it’s great that people play forever, but that’s not what I want to do with my life.”

Instead, she talks about the four children she plans to have with husband Andy Small, a former Northridge baseball player, and that classroom of third-graders she can’t wait to instruct.

“There’s a much bigger picture for her,” Sherman said. “She’s got a family to raise. These will be memories that she will have for the rest of her life.”

Some memories Blake-Small will cherish, certainly. Others, however, she would just as soon forget.

Like the time during her freshman year at practice when she was pitching--and pitching well--against her teammates who retaliated by making fun of her until she cried.

Or the time only weeks later in Fresno when Bulldog batters were teeing off on her until Coach Gary Torgeson finally walked out to the circle and told her to stop crying.

“I’m very emotional,” she said. “I cry a lot.”

If Tom Hanks had to put together another women’s team, he would probably pass on the teary-eyed one and send her packing to a league of her own.

But not Sherman, the first-year coach who as an assistant the previous three seasons watched Blake-Small mature into a more-hardened competitor. Emotional outbursts are expected.

“That’s what makes her good because she gets fired up,” Sherman said. “Kathy gets tough when she has to.”

She had to toughen up quickly one evening last December. After arriving home from her wedding rehearsal dinner, Blake-Small received a message that two of her teammates, Shelby Wilcox and Traci Gallian, were hospitalized and in critical condition after being involved in a fatal car accident while traveling to Blake-Small’s wedding in Atascadero.

“I thought [Wilcox] was gonna die that night,” she said. “I was hysterical. It was awful.”

Although Wilcox and Gallian missed the wedding the next day, they have recovered fully and are redshirts this season.

They are among those on the team that check Blake-Small during emotional moments on and off the field to see whether their star pitcher has lost it.

“They all look to me at the sad part of a movie and say, ‘Oh no, Blake’s gonna start crying now.’ ”

And sure enough, she’s crying--but always smiling.