Woodland Hills West Reaches Final With Banner Effort : Legion: Woodland Hills East drops 4-3 decision to rival for its first setback in the double-elimination tournament.

Generally when East meets West in sports, the playing fields are adorned with lively, colorful banners, the flags of the competing countries whip in the breeze and, sometimes, “The Star-Spangled Banner” will blare from quadraphonic speakers above the stadium.

But Friday at Birmingham High, there were no banners, flags or national anthems--just an intense rivalry waged between Woodland Hills East and Woodland Hills West in the third round of the American Legion District 20 playoffs.

This time the West prevailed, 4-3, to advance to the District 20 championship game Sunday at Birmingham.

The defending District 20 champion’s opponent in the final will be determined today at Birmingham. Panorama City will play Glendale at 11 a.m. and the winner will battle Woodland Hills East at 3 p.m. The three teams have one loss in the double-elimination tournament.

West and East entered the game with identical 21-4 records. The teams are not the best of friends and things got heated in the seventh inning with West leading, 4-0.

West pitcher Corey Bromberg, who was working on a three-hitter through six innings, accidentally hit East cleanup hitter Jamie Zeichick in the face with a pitch. After several moments on the ground with face in hands, Zeichick grabbed the ball and made a motion to throw at Bromberg but hesitated and dropped the ball.

After Zeichick was awarded first base, East touched Bromberg for three singles and a run-scoring balk to pull within 4-3.

West Coach Don Hornback said Bromberg (5-1) was having trouble with his off-speed pitches in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, during which the right-hander surrendered four of East’s six hits.

“We asked him if he had enough left to throw just fastballs and he said, ‘Yeah.’ ” Hornback said. “We told him to throw nothing but fastballs in the ninth inning. You see what he did to the last two batters? He blew them away.”

After East’s John Erganian led off the ninth with a walk and Matt Allison flied to center field, Bromberg struck out Mike Krasner and Eric Rothman on 0-2 and 1-2 pitches, respectively, for his sixth and seventh strikeouts.

“The only letdown was when I hit Zeichick,” Bromberg said.

West jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first inning when No. 3 hitter Del Marine sent Ryan Revel’s 2-2 pitch over the center-field fence--about a 410-foot blast--for a two-run home run.

Paul Geller scored West’s first run after leading off the first with a double, moving to third on Jeff Marks’ bunt single and scoring on a wild pitch.

Marine scored West’s fourth run in the third on a double play.

In an elimination game earlier in the day at Birmingham, Glendale held on to edge Quartz Hill, 8-7, after holding a 6-2 fourth-inning lead.

Quartz Hill rallied for three runs in the fifth and two in the seventh but was stopped short of tying the score in the ninth. With two out, Bryan Lovelace singled to right and darted to third on a throwing error before Jimmy Weese flied out.