Four Ways To Win

Pacifica has talent. Lots of talent. Talent for years to come. Toni Mascarenas and Amanda Freed are, arguably, the best players in this year’s senior and junior class.

Toria Auelua is among the five best sophomores, and there’s a good argument she’s among the top three.

Shawna Goessling is among the top five freshmen, and might be the best all-around player in the ninth grade.

“They’re real solid and don’t have any real weaknesses,” Doug Myers, coach of defending Division I champion Mater Dei, said of Pacifica. “I don’t like the word scared, but I respect them a lot. They’re as solid as anyone we’ll play all year.”

The task of Pacifica’s Big Four is to lead their teammates beyond the disappointments of their past. The last three years, Pacifica has a combined record of 74-13-1, but has lost in the quarterfinals or semifinals in the ninth or 10th inning on the smallest of errors. Except that when Pacifica is involved, there’s no such thing as a small error. All extra-inning losses, all 1-0.

“It just seems we’re a team that can’t make a mistake and get away with it,” Coach Rob Weil said. “If we make a mistake late in the game, it costs us the game. . . . The last three years, we have not had a break in the playoffs.”

Three years ago, Marina made a mistake that gave the Mariners a runner at third base with the No. 2 and 3 hitters coming to the plate. They couldn’t score. “And we make one stupid mistake,” Weil said, “and it costs us the ball game.”

Two years ago, Freed, who made no more than three errors all that season, bobbled a ball and threw late to first base, allowing Los Alamitos to score the winning run with two outs.

Last year, a ball thrown from first base to third goes under the fielder’s glove without hitting the ground and the runner scored.

“The bus ride home from Camarillo last year was an absolute disaster--it was like somebody died,” Weil said. “We were just devastated. The bad thing is we had opportunities to win. We had runners at second and third with our fourth and fifth hitters at the plate and one out, and we couldn’t score. It’s just one of those things.”

It’s one of those things that’s getting awfully old.

“I’m always thinking it’s not going to be something so little that’s going to lose the game for us--it’s going to be a home run or something--but it’s usually a routine ground ball, or someone should catch the ball and they don’t,” Mascarenas said. “It’s something we practice for and practice for, and in the game, we can’t perform.”

But the pattern is there. And it’s up to Mascarenas, Freed, Auelua and Goessling--the class of their classes--to lead Pacifica to the promised land.

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Perhaps no current senior in Orange County has been more consistent and well-rounded than Mascarenas, who also plays shortstop and third base. She was the Mariners’ best pitcher as a freshman, throwing five consecutive shutouts (three in the playoffs) before losing the semifinal to Marina. During her sophomore and junior years--splitting time in the pitcher’s circle with Freed--she proved herself to be one of the area’s best defensive players, too.

She is as diverse as they come, offensively and defensively. She batted fifth as a freshman, and in the 10-inning, 1-0 semifinal loss to Marina pitcher Marcy Crouch (who went on to win the section title with a one-hitter), Mascarenas had three of her team’s six hits. Mascarenas batted third as a sophomore, and first as a junior.

She’s a three-time Times all-county player. Her career batting average is .378, she has scored 73 runs and driven in 54. Her career pitching totals are 37-8 with a 0.17 earned-run average over 338 innings.

She is, simply, intimidating.

“Toni and [La Habra catcher] Jenny Topping are the two scariest people to pitch to,” Mater Dei’s Myers said.

In a showdown last season against league rival Garden Grove, Mascarenas hit a run-scoring double off the fence at Mark Twain School against Kathy Moore, one of the county’s better pitchers. However, a runner left too soon, so the runner was out and Mascarenas went back to the batter’s box. A pitch later, Mascarenas homered, just above the spot where she had doubled.

“I’m the type of person who never gives up,” Mascarenas said. “Usually, what I do is never good enough, even if it’s the best I can do. I’m my own worst enemy and my own worst critic. I get so frustrated with myself.”

So she is trying to be less negative this year, and hopes to take her game inside the pitching circle to another level before embarking on a collegiate career at Arizona, the defending NCAA champion.

“I want to compete better mentally when I pitch,” she said. “I’m a senior, and I want to go out showing everybody that I want to be on top, that I’m gunning for everybody.”

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Freed is easily one of the two best pitchers in the county. Though Mater Dei’s Marissa Young was all the buzz last season, Freed was all the rage over the summer. She pitched the Panthers ASA under-18 gold team to a national championship (four victories, 21 innings, five hits, 20 strikeouts). She warmed up for that performance by blowing away various collections of collegiate talent at a local summer tournament.

“My mom has been my coach since I was really young, but each coach I’ve had has taken me further,” Freed said. “That’s the key--being constantly being pushed to get better and not staying at the same level, not letting others pass you up.”

Few could surpass her. In her first two seasons, she was 26-2 with a 0.23 ERA; she struck out 290 in 182 innings, and allowed a hit once every four innings. Last season, Freed averaged 1.89 strikeouts per inning; Mater Dei’s Young, who had a county-high 215 strikeouts, averaged 1.68.

Freed, like Mascarenas before her and Young after, was heralded as the new phenom. She says she was oblivious to any pressure that might have been put on her because of her experience with the Panthers.

“I’ve been in pressure situations in past nationals, so in high school, it was just like going out and playing in another big tournament,” she said. “I didn’t feel [many] expectations. Just being a freshman on varsity, you feel like you have to prove you belong, and you have to compete with the older girls if you want to fit in, if you don’t want to appear inferior. Age doesn’t matter.”

Though coaches can offer all kinds of superlatives, the best might come from Kennedy junior Adrianna Wilson, who catches for a pitching coach two cages from where Freed practices with her coach, Ernie Parker. From where Wilson crouches, she can see Freed throw.

“I was astonished,” Wilson said. “I haven’t seen her play in a long time, but it was like, ‘Whoa, girls, look out!’ There is no other word for it than ‘Whoa.’ She’s going to stop people in their tracks.”

An example of Freed’s mental toughness came when Pacifica was playing Garden Grove last year. The starting catcher, Natasha Sisco, was out because she broke her thumb over the weekend. An outfielder, Jaymee Pendergast, was involved in an auto accident a day earlier that left her father in the hospital. A freshman was the replacement catcher.

Freed threw 50 pitches the first two innings, walked four, endured two passed balls, struck out four, but gave up no runs. She finished with a two-hitter, with five walks, 13 strikeouts and a 2-0 victory.

A few weeks later, in the rematch, Freed pitched a perfect game, struck out 17, and no one hit the ball deeper than shortstop. She threw only 85 pitches. Garden Grove was ranked seventh in the county.

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Auelua is already a team captain on the Mariners. While Freed leads by example, Auelua and Mascarenas are the more vocal leaders. In 1996, Auelua had something to shout about. She batted .342, scored 23 runs and drove in 12.

“Toria is great,” Mascarenas said. “In all the years I’ve played, I’ve never seen anyone who works as hard as she does and wants to be on the softball field as much as she does.”

Auelua, a third baseman last year but catching this season, said she has never thought of herself as one of the county’s best sophomores. Even last year, when she was included with Mater Dei’s Young and Foothill’s Jaime Clark in a story about impact freshman, she said she always thought she was being included because she “was one of the top 15.”

Next year, after Mascarenas leaves for Arizona, Auelua will shoulder more of the burden that Mascarenas carried.

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself so that I can do what I’m supposed to do, [which is] help pull the team through, encourage the girls, help somebody that needs help,” Auelua said. “I’d like to be a leader.”

Remember the game Freed pitched to the freshman catcher? It was Auelua. The passed balls? It was Auelua. “By far, my worst performance catching,” Auelua said. “I didn’t quite cut it that game.”

Maybe not. But this is what Auelua did. She went behind the plate to catch one of the county’s best pitchers, for the first time in a game situation, against another top-10 team. And though Auelua and Freed lacked chemistry early, only three batters got on base over the final five innings; Freed walked only one and struck out nine.

“Catcher is where she had to go to benefit the team,” Weil said.

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Hard as it might be to believe, Goessling might be the missing link in the evolution of Pacifica’s championship hopes. An outstanding defensive right fielder, she is a natural left-hander with terrific speed, a leadoff batter who allows Mascarenas--who hit six home runs last season--to bat third.

“If she gets on base 70% of the time,” said Weil, who said that was a reasonable expectation, “then we have [Dara] Wallace, Mascarenas, Freed and Auelua behind her. We should be able to manufacture some runs.”

And with Freed and Mascarenas pitching, Pacifica won’t need a lot of runs. Thus, Goessling follows in the footsteps of Mascarenas and Freed.

“I think there are expectations right now on me,” Goessling said. “I have them for myself. I know when I get older, there’s going to be a lot of pressure, but it’s just something that comes with playing.

“It’s going to be tough always living up to how other people think you should play [because] . . . you can’t always live up to what they want. You have to avoid letting that get to you.”

Understanding those expectations is a good start. She is one of several freshmen, including Burdick, Lindsey Stice (Calvary Chapel), and Kristin Farber (Los Alamitos), who face similar expectations to make their teams better.

Weil’s praise of Goessling, given his history with Mascarenas, Freed and Auelua, is probably the greatest compliment he could give her. It might also provide the most pressure.

“Goessling is probably the best freshman I’ve ever had,” Weil said. “She’s an all-around athlete. She can slap. She can hit with power. She throws out runners at first base from right field. She has speed. She’s a natural left-hander. She has everything you could ask for.”

Including four years of high school.