The High Schools : Chatsworth’s Aude Continues Knockout Baseball Career

As debuts go, it was a smashing success. Playing in his first varsity game two years ago, Chatsworth’s Rich Aude delivered a run-scoring hit in his first at-bat. And it came in a first-round City Section 4-A Division playoff game to boot.

Everything was progressing quite nicely for Aude, a gangly sophomore who was promoted from the junior varsity after Chatsworth’s starting second baseman missed a team meeting and was benched before an opening-round playoff game against North Hollywood.

Aude, now one of the City Section’s most feared hitters, was off to a memorable start. But after he was taken out by a baserunner at second while trying to turn a double play a few innings later, Aude couldn’t remember a thing.

“It was one of those ‘What-day-is-it?’ situations,” Chatsworth Coach Bob Lofrano said. “Except that when I got out there, I asked him what he’d done in his first at-bat.

“He looked up and said ‘I haven’t batted yet, coach.’ The kid comes up to bat in his first varsity game, delivers a hit, drives in a run and he couldn’t remember any of it.”

It was Aude’s only varsity appearance as a sophomore and, to this day, it remains a little hazy.

“After the guy buried me at second, everything went black,” Aude said. “I didn’t even know where I was.”

Aude, who suffered a mild concussion and was removed from the game, has spent the 1989 season introducing baseballs to a concussive force of his own. Entering play last week, the 6-foot-5 power hitter was batting .422 with five home runs and 24 runs batted in.

Add Chancellors: Chatsworth (17-2, 10-0 in league play) faces its biggest test of the season Tuesday in a Northwest Valley Conference game at San Fernando (13-3-1, 7-2-1). The game will be a first of sorts for both teams.

“We’ve never faced each other in a league situation,” Lofrano said. “We’ve played in winter league, tournaments and playoffs but never as league rivals.”

Ah, the playoffs. Last season, Chatsworth was shocked, 5-2, by the Tigers in a 4-A Division semifinal game at Cal State Northridge. The Chancellors, ranked No. 1 in the nation by ESPN at the time, were heavily favored to win the City crown. But against San Fernando junior right-hander Frank Serna, Chatsworth did not manage two hits in an inning until the seventh. The loss snapped Chatsworth’s win streak at 24 games.

Is revenge on Lofrano’s mind?

“In high school, there’s no carry-over,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of guys on this team who weren’t in the dugout for us last year. I don’t think it’s fair to compare last year’s team to this year’s.”

Senior right-hander Derek Wallace, who watched last season’s upset while warming up in the bullpen, admits that he has a measure of retribution in mind. He is expected to start against Serna on Tuesday.

“They dumped us,” he said. “They went up on us early and we sort of panicked and fell apart. I don’t think we were used to trailing.”

After playing a pair with San Fernando, Chatsworth plays two with Kennedy (14-5, 8-2) the following week.

“It’s going to be just like the playoffs,” said Wallace, who is unbeaten in his varsity career at 15-0. “It will be a tough two weeks, like playing four good teams in a row.”

Last add Chancellors: According to Sylmar Coach Gary Donatella, whose team was waxed, 14-1, by Chatsworth in the Holt-Goodman tournament final on April 11, pitching will be the key if a team is to end Chatsworth’s current 16-game win streak.

“It’s going to take a very good pitcher who’s having a real good day,” Donatella said. “Not an average guy having a great day, but a guy who’s good to begin with and who’s really on top of his game.”

You listening, Serna?

Poly power supply: Last summer, just for the heck of it--besides, his coach was out of town--Eddie Chavez played all nine positions in an American Legion game. It ended up being a perfect primer for his senior year at Poly.

Chavez has appeared in the outfield, as a starting pitcher and as a reliever, yet it is his bat that has opened the most eyes and mouths, including those of his coach, the normally laconic Jerry Cord.

Chavez has six home runs, which ties him with Kennedy’s Gino Tagliaferri for the lead among Valley-area City players. Cord, who took over the varsity in 1976, says that Chavez’s six homers are easily the best mark in his tenure. Or at least the most impressive.

“He’s hit some genuine home runs,” Cord said. “There were no flukes in the bunch. They were all shots.”

Chavez already has doubled the long-ball output of Danny Gil, the 1987 City 4-A Player of the Year, who also drove in 40 runs and batted .539 as a senior. Gil, now at USC, also had the benefit of playing for what perhaps was Poly’s best team ever, the ’87 City finalist. Cord said that former leadoff hitter Joey Speakes, another standout from the ’87 team, held the previous single-season high with five home runs, though most were inside-the-park jobs.

Chavez is batting .418 with 26 RBIs and has a slugging percentage of .782 and an on-base percentage of .459.

As a pitcher, the right-hander is 1-1 with two saves and an earned-run average of 3.31. He has struck out 16 and walked four in 14 1/3 innings and is unscored upon in 7 1/3 innings of relief.

Doubleheader: Newbury Park senior Wayne Cook proved he is one of the area’s best all-around athletes Friday.

A few hours after his three-run home run led the Panthers to a 7-4 win over Camarillo, Cook scored seven points to help the Southern Section to a 141-136 win over the City Section in the San Fernando Valley all-star basketball game at Cal State Northridge.

“I didn’t really play that much, but I’m still kind of tired,” said Cook, who will play football at UCLA in the fall. “In a game like that, it’s run, run, run the whole time, so you burn out pretty fast.”

Next time, sleep in: After absorbing a 7-3 loss in Saturday’s Redondo-Palos Verdes baseball tournament game against Culver City, Alemany senior right-hander Matt Delavigne’s record fell to 0-4.

It isn’t exactly news. All four of Delavigne’s losses have come in Saturday tournament games.