La Habra, Sonora Share Title

For the last three seasons, the Freeway League has belonged to La Habra. The Highlanders had the league’s best pitcher, Christina Gibbons, and one of the nation’s finest catchers, Jenny Topping.

With their graduation, La Habra was supposed to be history.

But history repeated itself on Thursday as the Highlanders won a share of the league title, their fourth, by beating Sonora, 3-0. La Habra goes into the Southern Section Division III playoffs next week as the league’s No. 1 entry because it beat Sonora twice.

“This meant everything, proving everyone wrong, showing everyone we can do it, that we have the heart to do it,” senior first baseman Elaine Elsesser said of her team’s winning a share of its fourth consecutive league title.

Because of La Habra’s upset loss on Tuesday to Buena Park, 3-2, the Highlanders needed a victory over first-place Sonora to share the title, and the Highlanders were nearly flawless.

“We would have liked to have won the league title outright, but La Habra played the way the game is supposed to be played and beat us,” said Sonora Coach John Link. “We had a whole lot of confidence coming into the game, and we made mistakes, but La Habra simply outplayed us. . . . Their pitcher isn’t even a pitcher.”

Cassie Preece would probably be playing shortstop if Elsesser didn’t have tendinitis and sophomore Amber Turner didn’t have a shoulder injury.

Preece (8-6) allowed four hits, outdueling Andee Lindgren (11-4), who allowed three. Lindgren was victimized by two errors in the sixth inning.

Michelle Faulkinbury and Kaysie Thompson singled with one out, and errors on a fly ball to right field and a grounder to second base allowed three runs to score.

In another league game:

Troy 2, Sunny Hills 0--Lisa Jackson scored the winning run on a single by winning pitcher Lindsey Knoff (18-7), who gave up two hits. The victory gave Troy (18-9, 6-4) the third playoff berth over Sunny Hills (13-12, 4-6).