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ANAHEIM — Villa Park’s softball team won the critical coin toss and the pitchers’ duel between Pac-12-bound seniors.

The Spartans just needed one mighty swing from Brianne Kang to complete their comeback journey to reach the postseason.

The catcher led off Villa Park’s Crestview League showdown at rival Canyon on Wednesday with a home run, sending the Spartans to a 1-0 victory and perhaps a high seed for the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs.

Canyon (23-5, 4-2), Villa Park (23-4, 4-2) and Esperanza (17-11, 4-2) — ranked first, second and third, respectively, in Orange County — finished in a three-way atop the Crestview League, but the Spartans won a coin flip Wednesday for the four-team league’s No. 1 automatic playoff entry.

Canyon and Esperanza will play a tiebreaker Thursday at Villa Park for the No. 2 automatic playoff entry. The losing team will need an at-large CIF berth, if available, to get into the playoffs. Canyon is in Division 3 and Esperanza in Division 1, and both are loaded with automatic qualifiers. According to some projections, those divisions might not offer at-large berths when the pairings are released Saturday.

Villa Park, meanwhile, can catch its breath after recovering from a 1-2 start in league and an ankle injury to ace Sydney Somerndike in late March.

“Incredible,” Vila Park coach Terry Williams said of his team’s turnaround. “A week and a half ago, we were looking at missing the playoffs and now we’re the No. 1 overall seed from probably the toughest league in Orange County, maybe the toughest league in California.”

“We’re just so fortunate to win that game, the way Kylee (Magee) pitched today against us,” Williams added. “Syd matched her but Kylee was absolutely dominant. We’re a good hitting team and she completely shut us down.”

The Arizona State-bound Magee fired a four-hitter with 15 strikeouts and one walk for Canyon. The Arizona-bound Somerndike countered with her second one-hitter in three games and struck out 14, including the final two batters.

Somerndike didn’t allow a hit after Bella Fraser smacked the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning into center for a single. Canyon had only one more base runner courtesy of one-out walk in the second.

Somerndike retired the final 17 batters she faced, including one on a diving catch by first baseman Ashley Adams on a foul to end the sixth.

Kang, a senior headed to Williams College in Massachusetts, opened the game by belting a 2-2 pitch over the fence for her fifth home run.

“I was just as shocked as everyone else,” she said of her homer. “The moment it went over, I was ‘Oh my goodness.’ I was just happy to hit a home run in my last game (of league).”

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Somerndike said she wasn’t surprised by Kang’s blast because of the way her batterymate has been hitting this season.

“She’s just been great behind the plate and in the box the whole season,” she said of Kang. “(The home run) gave us all the confidence we needed, and it put us in the game right away.”

And ultimately, the home run put Villa Park in the playoffs, too.