Ludlow’s Place Is at the Top

Eight City Section 4-A softball titles in the past 12 years and El Camino Real Coach Neils Ludlow is proof that some things never change.

“I feel in life sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time,” said Ludlow, the state’s record holder for most section titles in softball who refuses to take credit for the team’s unprecedented success.

Try as one will to get Ludlow to toot his own horn, each time the response is the same. It’s simply a matter of luck and timing, he says, almost verbatim.

“My job is basically trying to get the right peg in the right slot,” Ludlow said. “Once in a while I get lucky and we get a hit when we need it and win the ball game.”

Ludlow will try his “luck” again Tuesday at 5 p.m. when second-seeded El Camino Real (18-3) faces top-seeded Kennedy (21-4) in the City 4-A final at Easton Field at UCLA.

Not even Ludlow’s players believe their coach’s line about being in the right place at the right time. The players know the legacy of El Camino Real softball and of the 73-game winning streak that the Conquistadores enjoyed from 1984-87. The streak is a state record by 23 games.

Players see the effort that Ludlow--in his 13th season--puts into the program and know what makes El Camino Real a perennial winner.

“He’s a big part of it,” said Ramona Shelburne, a four-year starter and this season’s only starting senior. “He’s out there everyday until the sun goes down. It’s his life. He lives and breathes softball.”

Ludlow has had some terrific players--Karen Walker, Chrissy Peck, Beth Silverman, Jen Fleming and Tami Jones, to name a handful. His biggest reward, he says, is when the players come back and visit him.

“I’m just happy to be a part of something this good,” he said.

Shelburne is also happy to be part of the El Camino Real tradition, which is part of the motivation that keeps the Conquistadores’ top slugger playing her best.

“I know for me, I don’t want to be [on] the team that doesn’t win [the title],” said Shelburne, who has been on title-winning teams as a freshman and junior. “I remember our 10th grade year, we just felt like such disappointments.”

Ludlow, 58, who also coaches boys’ basketball, said retirement could come before the beginning of the new century.

“I’ve pondered [retirement]. It’s something I look forward to,” Ludlow said. “It’s going to come to an end probably in the next few years.

“There’s other people who need an opportunity to do what I’m doing and have some of the good experiences.”

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Despite El Camino Real’s penchant for winning under Ludlow’s tutelage, the Conquistadores are underdogs to a Golden Cougar team that features Sandra Durazo, the City Section’s best pitcher who is headed to San Diego State on scholarship.

It is a rematch of last year’s final, which second-seeded El Camino Real won, 6-0, on Jones’ two-hit, eight-strikeout performance.

Although Jones has moved on to Northwestern, many of the details are similar to last year. Kennedy defeated El Camino Real, 1-0, earlier this season in Northwest Valley Conference play; the Golden Cougars also beat El Camino Real by a run in a regular-season game last year.

The Conquistadores, who have won 11 consecutive games since losing to Kennedy on April Fool’s Day, have five batters hitting .362 or better. But can they hit Durazo, who shackled them on a two-hitter last time out?

If they can’t, Shelburne said, they shouldn’t be City champions.

“I’m happy we’re playing Kennedy,” Shelburne said. “Bring it on.”

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What’s a 15-letter word for an unfair, uninteresting playoff format?

Answer: Regionalization.

The new Southern Section playoff format, which bunches each division into four regions based primarily on geography in order to save money and time on travel, is not very popular among area softball coaches. And their arguments are well-founded.

In Division I, the three Marmonte League teams--among the best in the Southern Section--that made the playoffs will meet in the second round and quarterfinals.

The format guarantees that only one area team can advance to the semifinals in Division I. Twice in the past six years, two area teams have advanced to the semifinal round.

Worse still, many top area teams have already played one another, some as many as three times.

“I’m not real happy with it,” Simi Valley Coach Suzanne Manlet said. “Part of [the playoffs] is going places and seeing other people.

“And to have the same people playing the same teams from a tough league is [unfair].”

Camarillo Coach Miki Mangan agrees.

“A [long] bus trip puts them in the mood more than, ‘Oh, we’re playing Thousand Oaks again,’ ” Mangan said.

Crescenta Valley Coach Alan Eberhart, who can see the good and bad of the new format, now has cause to rethink his nonleague schedule. In the past, top area teams chose to play in tough Orange County tournaments to get a look at teams they might face in the playoffs.

“I might as well go and play in the Thousand Oaks tournament,” Eberhart said. “The Woodbridge tournament isn’t going to do me any good.”

This format isn’t going to do anybody any good.