Soto’s No-Hitter Leads Pacifica Out of Shadow

Amanda Freed, fresh from winning an NCAA softball championship at UCLA, stopped by Pacifica on Friday to wish her former teammates luck.

That was the extent of Freed’s contribution to the cause.

Playing without last year’s state player of the year, Pacifica won this Southern Section Division III title, its third in a row, on its own.

The top-seeded Mariners, behind Jessica Soto’s no-hitter and Tiffany Wallace’s three-run triple, beat Brea Olinda, 6-0, in front of 2,100 at Mayfair Park in Lakewood.

Soto (23-7), the only field player who didn’t start last year’s title game--the Mariners had Freed, after all--matched Freed’s 1997 championship performance, allowing only one runner, on a leadoff walk to Erin Chang, and had only one serious challenge to her no-hitter.

Tiffany Whitton, the last batter, hit a screamer at first baseman Nicole Pickett--in fact, it knocked the glove off Pickett’s hand--but Pickett grabbed the ball and tagged first base.

Even Whitton (11-5), the losing pitcher, had to laugh at the play.

It was simply Pacifica’s night.

“There were the doubters who said we couldn’t do this without Amanda, but to top this whole thing off like this is very rewarding,” Pacifica Coach Rob Weil said. “Everyone expected us to win in 1997 with Toni [Mascarenas] and Amanda, and again in 1998. This year, everyone expected us to be mediocre at best.

“When we lost two or three in a row, everyone said, ‘I told you so.’ The kids took that personally.”

Pacifica (24-8) got only five hits against Whitton and struck out 10 times, but scored twice in the third while benefiting from two errors, and four in the fifth inning.

In the fifth, a walk, single, fielder’s choice and another walk set up Pickett’s run-scoring single to left field.

Wallace, a left-handed batter who struck out in her first two at-bats, drove the ball over right fielder Joana Bostick for a three-run triple.

“This shows that it was the whole team, shows that we could stand on our own,” said Wallace, the center fielder who grabbed the only other ball that came close to falling safely--a soft fly by Whitton in the first inning. “No one had any faith in us. This was our chance to prove to everyone that it wasn’t just one or two players who won the other titles.”

Soto admitted that she couldn’t fashion a more brilliant ending to her high school career.

“It means so much,” she said. “I was just excited to be here.

“It couldn’t have ended any better.”

Brea Coach Sharen Caperton, making her first title appearance in 15 years as coach, didn’t expect this kind of result against Soto.

“I’m a little surprised [at the no-hitter],” said Caperton, whose team’s batting average was .272. “She’s very hittable.”

It had been an inauspicious start for Soto. Her first two warmup pitches sailed about halfway up the backstop.

“Everyone was nervous,” said UCLA-bound catcher Toria Auelua. “After that first inning, she was awesome.

“That’s the best I’ve ever seen her pitch. Her pitches moved more, she was hitting her spots.”

And no one was hitting Soto.

Brea finished 22-8-1.

Pacifica took advantage of its speed--and two Brea lapses on defense--to score twice in the third inning as Shawn Goessling scored from third and Dara Webb--who led Orange County with 48 stolen bases--scored from second base on a grounder off the third baseman’s glove.