Pacifica Looks for Joy After Victory

Having caught the final pitch for the game-ending strikeout, Toria Auelua made a beeline for pitcher Amanda Freed and clamped on a bear hug.

“It was out of relief,” Auelua, the junior catcher, said.

Relief for a lot of things, the least being top-seeded Pacifica’s second consecutive Southern Section Division III title, a 1-0 victory over third-seeded Glendora St. Lucy’s Saturday at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park.

“We weren’t just playing for ourselves,” Auelua said, “but we were playing for other people.”

People such as Mark Auelua, Toria and teammate Tiare Auelua’s father who, at age 39, died a week before the season began. The Mariners wore his initials on their uniform sleeves all season. And Brent Freed, 21, the pitcher’s cousin who died a month ago. And assistant coach Dan Riordan’s wife, who died of cancer three weeks ago.

“We didn’t talk about it,” Amanda Freed said, “but it was there.”

Some unusual things happened in Saturday’s game. Freed scored on a wild pitch “for the first time I can remember.”

Losing pitcher Shannon Walsh (23-6) threw a wild pitch for the first time in 225 innings.

The Mariners won by shutout in the only complete game Freed pitched this season in which she failed to strike out 10. She gave up four hits, walked two and struck out five--only one after the second inning.

But that’s how the Mariners (29-3) put the final touches on a season-long quest to repeat as champions while wearing their hearts on their sleeves.

“It’s not just a game, it’s a memory,” Toria Auelua said. “It’s something that will be with you for the rest of your life.

“It’s something my dad really wanted, [for] my sister and I to be in a championship game and to win it. We’ve worked really hard at that.”

Sophomore Tiare Auelua was at bat when Freed scored from third on a 1-2 pitch that glanced off catcher Natalie Anter’s mitt.

Anter got a good bounce and retrieved the ball quickly. Walsh, the pitcher, covered home as Freed started to slide. Anter dived toward the plate.

“I should have thrown it--we probably would have gotten her,” said Anter. “It was my fault. It was just a reaction. The first thing I thought was to get her.”

Freed, told two pitches earlier to break for home on a wild pitch, said she hesitated slightly.

“I probably shouldn’t have,” Freed said. “From the angle I was at, it was kind of hard to tell at first.”

Tiare Auelua, a .156 hitter who took over at third base for Toni Mascarenas, an All-American freshman at Arizona, knew Freed was safe.

“I was so happy,” Auelua said. “That was a lot of pressure.”

Freed had reached on her second infield single. Tiffany Wallace followed with her second single and Nicole Pickett walked. Then, the decisive, errant curveball.

Walsh, who will play next year at Washington, gave up five hits. The Mariners stranded five, the Regents six.

Pacifica’s victory was unlike last year’s 3-0 pitchers’ duel against St. Lucy’s in which there was only one hit through 5 1/2 innings and Freed threw a no-hitter.

Freed (17-2), who had three no-hitters in a row coming into the game, didn’t have her best stuff Saturday. But she had enough to keep the Regents (25-7-1) off-balance and off the scoreboard.

“I knew as soon as they got their first hit on the first pitch I threw--which I shouldn’t have thrown--it wasn’t going to be like last year,” said Freed, who will attend UCLA next fall.

Two of Freed’s five strikeouts were huge. She got Anter, the cleanup batter, with a runner at third base to end the first inning.

Her fourth strikeout came at the end of the second inning after Roni Rivera’s two-out double.

St. Lucy’s got singles from Brooke Norton and Anter leading off the third and fourth innings, but neither got past second base.

Anter’s was the only hit she gave up after getting the 1-0 lead.

“At the beginning, we were hitting her hard,” St. Lucy’s Coach Dave Confair said. “You could tell she felt a lot more secure.”

“A couple more runs would have been nice,” Freed said. “It wasn’t a day where I felt great and was on a roll.”

But Toria Auelua, who has caught Freed’s 10 no-hitters, said the difference between Freed when she’s on or off is scant.

“She was great,” Auelua said, “but not awesome.”