4A ALL-STATE: Centennial’s Bowen stars with bat, glove

During a 31-day stretch this season, Heather Bowen’s softball statistics looked like they came straight from a video game.

In 16 games between March 13 and April 12, Centennial’s sophomore shortstop hit .566 (30-for-53) with 14 home runs, four doubles, 34 RBIs, 30 runs and one strikeout.

Eventually, Bowen cooled a bit, but she still remained one of the state’s most productive hitters and helped the Bulldogs (34-8) to their third Class 4A state championship.

Bowen is the Review-Journal’s Class 4A state player of the year.

“It was awfully impressive to sit back and watch. She was in such a zone,” Centennial coach Mike Livreri said. “The ball must have been huge to her. She just wasn’t missing. She was just on fire, a tear I’ve never seen.”

Bowen, who has committed to Utah, finished the season hitting .480 with a school-record 16 home runs. She also had 18 doubles, drove in 60 runs and scored 54. She struck out five times and drew 21 walks in 150 plate appearances.

“She’s going to deserve what she gets because she works hard to hone her skill,” Livreri said. “Some kids don’t listen to you. They think they’ve got it all figured out. Heather is not like that. She likes to be coached. She does listen. She practices the difficult things.”

Monster stretches never last forever, and Bowen went through a 1-for-10 spell to start the state tournament. But she picked the right day to put everything back together.

With Centennial needing to beat Coronado twice on the final day of the season to win the state title, Bowen went 6-for-7 with three doubles, six runs and four RBIs as the Bulldogs won a pair of five-inning games.

She even dropped down a bunt single in the first game, a call Livreri said came from Bowen herself.

“She’s the heart of the lineup; as she goes, everybody else went,” Livreri said.

Bowen’s contributions weren’t limited to offense. She committed just 11 errors and shows tremendous range and a cannonlike arm at shortstop.

In the state final, Bowen ranged to her right, deep into the hole at short, and threw out a runner at first from the edge of the outfield grass.

“To her left, she has range and she makes those plays, but to me the most impressive ones are the ones where she goes into the (third base-shortstop) hole and comes up and with that gun, she’s just knocking people down,” Livreri said. “She just has you shaking your head sometimes with some of the plays she makes.”

The scary part, though, is Bowen still has two more years to get better.

“She can still improve,” Livreri said. “She wants to be the best. She can be one of the best, if not the best player who has ever played at Centennial. If she puts up two strong years like this, she has to be in the conversation. She’s already all over our leaderboard and on top of it on some.”