West Keeps District 20 Title, 4-3 : American Legion: After a shaky start, reliever Sean Boldt holds off Panorama City in championship game.

For eight innings Sunday, Panorama City batters got a panoramic view of Pat Treend’s pitching dominance in the American Legion District 20 baseball championship game.

But in the ninth, Treend watched helplessly from the Woodland Hills West dugout as Panorama City batters mercilessly ripped reliever Sean Boldt, turning Treend’s three-hit shutout into an historic footnote.

Panorama City parlayed five ninth-inning singles into three runs and had the potential tying run at first base before Boldt and Woodland Hills West closed the door to win its second consecutive District 20 title, 4-3, at Birmingham High.

The win moves West, the defending national champions, into the Area 6 playoffs beginning Thursday and continuing through Sunday at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium.

West Coach Don Hornback pulled Treend (4-2) from the game after the eighth inning because he said the right-hander was feeling some tenderness in his arm.

“It wasn’t getting soar so much,” said Treend, who struck out five, walked four and hit a batter. “I was just getting lazy and pitched in a different arm location each time. If I started short-arming it, (my arm) gets tight.”

Boldt was tight, too. The right-hander checked in at the mound in the ninth with little warm-up time and that might have affected his breaking pitches, according to catcher Bobby Kim.

“If Sean threw in the bullpen a little bit, he’d have been much better,” Kim said.

A controversial interference call in the ninth inning helped Boldt, however.

With no one out, Shad Ortiz, who singled to score Panorama City’s third run in the inning, slid into second baseman Paul Geller in an attempt to break-up a potential double play after Bobby Kite grounded to Boldt.

Ortiz was out on the play, but he knocked Geller off balance before Geller could throw to Roland De La Maza at first. The second base umpire, who claimed Ortiz slid out of the base line, called interference on the play and ruled Kite out at first.

“I slid straight at the bag,” Ortiz said. “I was just trying to break-up the double play.”

After surrendering another single to John Langley, Boldt struck out David Garcia on a 1-2 pitch to thwart Panorama City’s late surge.

West (23-4) took a quick 2-0 lead in the second after Jason Cohen led off with a single and Kim followed with his first of two doubles. Designated-hitter Greg Lederman singled home Cohen and Kim scored when Greg Sheren hit into a double play.

In his next at-bat Sheren popped Russell Ortiz’s 1-0 pitch over the left-center-field fence for a 3-0 West advantage in the fifth. Sheren scored again in the seventh on Geller’s fly to center.

Ortiz (4-2) struck out six in going the distance for Panorama City (22-7), last year’s District 20 and Area 6 runner-up.

Panorama City, which advanced to the Area 6 playoffs as the district’s second-place team last year, will not play again this summer because District 20 is limited to one berth in the regional playoffs.