On Defense, They Sweep Opponents Off Their Feet : Lunceford: Senior’s strength, intelligence and consistency have helped Trabuco Hills gain nine shutouts this season.

There are those who dread low-scoring soccer matches, but Trabuco Hills’ Christy Lunceford makes a good case for the defense.

Lunceford has been a defender for most of her soccer-playing days. But even when she played offense, she often would stay farther back than she should have in order to prevent a counterattack. It’s almost as if she takes goals personally.

“I’ve always liked playing defense because I don’t like seeing people scoring all the time,” Lunceford said. “If you hold a team out they can’t win.

“The main goal in soccer is to not let your opponent score.”

By that measure, the Mustangs have succeeded nine times in 19 matches this season. All-league goalkeeper Shannon Pickett gets much of the credit for the team’s defensive success but, with the help of Lunceford and the three fullbacks, opponents have averaged about five shots on goal. The Mustangs have allowed 14 goals this season.

“When they come through, Shannon makes the great saves but first they’ve got to get through Christy,” Trabuco Hills Coach Bob Daman said.

Lunceford makes that difficult because of her strength, intelligence and consistency. As the last defender before the goalkeeper, the sweeper must make the correct choices.

“She reads the whole field very well,” Daman said. “If somebody’s getting beat she knows when to go after that person and when not to.”

Lunceford, a senior sweeper and four-year starter, took to defense when she joined the team. Her older sister, Linda, was providing all the offense that was necessary. Linda Lunceford, who graduated in 1990, scored 31 goals her senior season and had 87 goals in two seasons at Trabuco Hills and one at Esperanza.

By contrast, Christy, who takes most of the Mustangs’ free kicks and occasionally scores by heading in corner kicks, has scored only one goal this season. She had five last season.

Even so, Christy is as big a contributor on defense as her sister was on offense.

And like Linda, who plays softball for Cal State Long Beach, Christy is also a standout softball player and will play that sport in college.

Christy, who batted .435 with 30 runs batted in for Trabuco Hills’ softball team last season, has signed a letter of intent to play softball at Creighton. It was mainly a financial choice--although she has more fun playing soccer, Lunceford says the scholarship opportunities in softball are greater.

Giving up competitive soccer will be difficult, but as her 3.97 grade-point average would indicate, education is a priority for Lunceford.

For now, however, she tries to stay in as many matches as possible even if it means playing with pain. After spraining an ankle in a Foothill tournament match, Lunceford surprised her coach by playing the next day and helping the Mustangs to the consolation championship.

“The trainer taped it up and said she could play on it as long as she could tolerate the pain, and she played two games,” Daman said.

Lunceford said: “I hate sitting out. Especially when you are sitting out and you see the other team score and you say, ‘I should have been out there to kick it out.’ ”