Woodland Hills West Begins Another Streak, 14-6

Woodland Hills West got a fresh start Friday.

After his team’s 20-game winning streak was snapped Thursday in a first-round game of the American Legion 6th Area baseball playoffs, West Coach Don Hornback activated pitcher Sean Boldt, who had not started since July 19.

Boldt went the distance but it was Jason Cohen’s bat that delivered the knockout blow in West’s 14-6 win over Santa Monica in a second-round elimination game at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

The right-handed Boldt (8-1) limited Santa Monica to one hit in the first two innings before allowing five runs in the third. Like a rubber band, he snapped back and surrendered just five hits and one run over the last six innings.

Meanwhile, Cohen was cashing in on opportunities presented him, the El Camino Real High graduate driving in six runs in his first four at-bats.

Six Santa Monica errors added more fuel to West’s fire, although only two of the defending World Series champion’s runs were unearned. Santa Monica committed three errors in the second inning but did not allow a run.

The win moves West (24-5) into a third-round game today against Culver City, with the winner of that game advancing to the championship semifinal. Claremont, by virtue of its win over Camarillo on Friday, automatically qualifies for the Sunday finals based on two 6th Area wins in a row.

West, which lost, 8-7, to Claremont in the first round, must win a doubleheader today and a doubleheader Sunday to claim its second consecutive 6th Area championship and a berth in the state playoffs in Yountville, Calif.

“Just like we said, one in a row and we got four to go,” Hornback said to his team in a postgame meeting, implying that winning five in a row shouldn’t be that difficult of a feat for a team that already had run off a streak of 20.

Cohen’s 4-for-5 performance--which included two-run doubles in the third and fourth innings--was a vast improvement over his one-for-five effort against Claremont on Thursday.

“He’s an RBI machine,” Hornback said. “You get guys on base and you like to see Jason Cohen at the plate. Without hitting the ball out of the yard, he played close to a perfect offensive ballgame.”

West scored a run in the first and added five runs on five hits--four of them doubles--in the third to take a 6-0 lead. Santa Monica returned the favor, shelling Boldt for five singles and five runs in the bottom of the inning.

“If you look at his history, that’s how it’s been,” Hornback said of Boldt, who allowed 10 hits and one unearned run. “He’s always had one bad inning.”

History aside, Santa Monica’s rally worried Cohen.

“That was kind of scary. It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “We did everything we had to do right except in that third inning.”

West scored two runs in the fourth and four in the sixth to take a 12-5 lead. In the fourth inning, Cohen’s second double scored Paul Geller and Del Marine for an 8-5 lead.

In the sixth, Geller was awarded first base after being hit in the shoulder by reliever Louis Kim. One out later, Geller scored his fourth run on Marine’s triple into the left-field corner. Cohen singled to score Marine for West’s second run of the inning. Bobby Kim followed and tagged Louis Kim’s 2-1 pitch for a two-run home run to left-center.

Santa Monica, the District 24 runner-up, collected two triples in the sixth but scored only one run.

West, the two-time District 20 champion, scored a run in each of the eighth and ninth innings to account for the final score.