SOFTBALL: Flawless Annville-Cleona captures Section Four crown

LITITZ >> As it so often does in championship game settings, it came down not to which team made the big play, but which one made the big mistake.

On this occasion, Emma Lerchen and her Annville-Cleona teammates were bound and determined that it wasn't going to be them lamenting a costly miscue and a championship that got away.

It was, Lerchen and her teammates believed, their time.

And so it was.

With a laser focus and a steely resolve that had sometimes been missing in previous big game encounters, A-C captured its first Lancaster-Lebanon Section Four title since 2010 on Wednesday at Warwick. It came via a 2-0 victory over arch nemesis Pequea Valley in a one-game playoff for all the section marbles after the two finished the regular season with identical 12-4 section records.

Backed by absolutely flawless defense, Lerchen fired a two-hit shutout on the mound and got all the run support she would need in the bottom of the fifth, when Pequea committed two damaging errors on one play that led to both A-C runs.