Lunceford Sisters Teaming Up for Success : Prep softball: Trabuco Hills senior shortstop and sophomore catcher have no problems with sibling rivalry on the field.

The Trabuco Hills High School softball team is quite a family affair.

Senior shortstop Linda Lunceford leads the team with one of the highest batting averages in Orange County at .526. As the leadoff batter, she specializes in a left-handed run-up slap that gets her on base more often than not.

The clean-up hitter and catcher is Li’l Lunce, a.k.a. Christy Lunceford, Linda’s younger sister.

Christy, a sophomore, knows that if she leaves Linda stranded by chasing a poor pitch or taking a called third strike, she is going to hear about it from her big sister.

But they both have to answer to the coach, Mike Flanegin, who is the girls’ stepfather.

The trio, along with Judy Flanegin, the girls’ mother and team scorekeeper, have come up with the right answers this season.

Trabuco Hills placed second to Woodbridge in the Pacific Coast League after sharing the league title last year. And the Luncefords have had a lot to do with that success.

Linda, last year’s Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player, has 17 runs batted in, 35 stolen bases and 33 runs scored.

“Her strengths are quickness and speed,” Mike Flanegin said. “Defensively, if there is a ball hit in the hole between short and third, she can go over and she can backhand the ball and the throw is released so quickly, just boom, boom, and it’s gone. It’s as if she hardly even touches it sometimes and it’s on its way.”

Christy, who started on the varsity as a freshman last year, is batting .360 with 20 RBIs, 14 runs scored and 10 stolen bases.

“I think Christy is one of the best softball catchers around and one of the best sophomore athletes around,” Flanegin said.

It has taken quite a bit of hard work to make the family’s relationship work on and off the softball diamond, the Luncefords said.

Linda’s and Christy’s natural father, Ron, died in 1982 of cancer when they were 10 and 8. When their mother remarried in 1984, the girls resented Mike and felt he was trying to replace their dad.

Mike Flanegin felt the resentment. “Christy is the kind of girl who runs around with a big grin on her face all the time,” Flanegin said. “But that first year, I didn’t know she knew how to smile.”

Said Linda: “I didn’t accept him at all. Probably because he is not my natural father. Still, right now it is kind of hard. Sometimes it gets in the way on the softball field, but we just work around it and it turns out fine.”

Nowadays, Flanegin can get a smile from Christy. “We have kind of a little better relationship,” Christy said. “We fight a lot. In the beginning, it was really hard, but now we’re more mellow.”

The family also had to deal with two moves--from Irvine to Yorba Linda during Linda’s freshman year and from Yorba Linda to Rancho Santa Margarita at the start of her junior year.

Despite the disruptions, Linda has been first-team all-league in softball for four years and all-league in soccer for three. This year, after scoring 31 goals, she was named the league MVP in soccer. Christy was on the field with her, too; she also was named to the all-league team.

Sibling rivalry has been more of a problem off the field than on it.

The girls fight over clothes--”She takes my clothes without asking and hides them at her friend’s house so she can wear them,”--and the telephone, “She’s always on it,” Linda said.

On the field they have a mutual respect, however.

“We mostly just play together for the team, not really against each other,” Linda said. “We both have different duties. I’m leadoff, so I’m working to get on base and she’s cleanup so she’s working to hit me in.”

As the big sister, Linda has the monopoly on yelling rights and will exercise them if she believes her sister needs it. But Christy said she takes it constructively.

“If I strike out looking at the pitch she’ll get mad but I can’t blame her,” Christy said. “She’ll yell at me for something but it makes me try harder.

“I have confidence in her and I always trust her to get the job done.”