HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL PREVIEW : Chatsworth Expected to Carve Out Another City 4-A Championship

Call it the Chatsworth Lumber Company. Or maybe Murderer’s Row of the Valley. Call it what you like, Chatsworth’s lineup should have opposing coaches calling frequently to the bullpen.

Facing the Chancellors will be chancy for West Valley League pitchers this season. Coach Bob Lofrano’s batting order is sure to inflate a few earned-run averages.

Returning players include Rex McMackin, who batted .520 last season, Joel Wolfe (.467), John Haselbusch (.392), Ty Powell (.375), David Waco (.358) and Eric Niece (.352). Art Lowe is also back. He batted only .322.

Who do you pitch around in this lineup?

“We’re getting production out of everybody,” said Wolfe, one of 50 preseason All-American selections by Collegiate Baseball. “Even guys we never expected it from.”

Wolfe, a 6-2 1/2, 200-pound third baseman, produced the most last season, leading the team with 4 home runs, 29 runs scored and 29 runs batted in.

Said Lofrano: “We’re capable of exploding, offensively.”

Chatsworth has eight starters returning as seniors. It almost seems unfair to the other teams in the league.

“Other teams may have eight players returning,” Lofrano said. “But how many have eight starters coming back? And these kids have had success. It’s not like the guys coming back were 3-12 last year.”

Chatsworth was 19-7 and tied Canoga Park for a share of its seventh consecutive league championship. The Chancellors advanced to the 4-A semifinal round of the playoffs before losing to Poly. Canoga Park defeated Poly, 5-4, in the championship game at Dodger Stadium.

The Chancellors last won a City championship in 1983 and reached the semifinal round each of the past two years. This season, Chatsworth, ranked No. 1 in the Times Valley Poll, appears to be everyone’s pick to play for the title June 2.

“They’re definitely the team to beat,” El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio said.

Said Cleveland Coach Ray Todd: “They’re loaded.”

Lofrano, however, cautions that the Chancellors making the final is hardly a sure thing.

“Whatever I hear, I try not to hear,” he said. “I know my team’s capabilities, but we have to go out and prove we can play. All it takes is one good pitcher to throw a good game at us and we could be out of it.”

Lofrano recognizes the value of a good pitching performance. Left-hander Pierre Amado, who shuffles a curve with a live fastball, turned in several last season and finished 6-3 with a 2.02 ERA. With Amado on the mound, batters will be dealing with more junk than Fred Sanford.

“He’s not an overpowering pitcher,” Lofrano said. “But it doesn’t matter how hard he throws. He can move in and out on the hitters.”

Barring an almost implausible teamwide slump, Chatsworth’s hitters should be moving out a lot of pitchers--to the showers.