Chatsworth Shows Enough Punch Early to Present Formidable Title Defense

Chatsworth High, the defending City Section 4-A Division champion, might indeed be better offensively than a season ago. Through their first five games, the Chancellors have scored 52 runs and rolled up 10 or more runs four times. In fact, Chatsworth already has hit eight home runs, equaling last season’s 30-game total.

The defense also might be improved. Senior Thurman Williams, who starts in center field, is one of the Chancellors’ fastest players and anchors an outfield that practically dares teams to muscle up.

Williams, a transfer from Anaheim Magnolia High, plays about as deep as the average softball rover.

“He does like to play shallow,” Coach Tom Meusborn said. “We figure that if they hit it over his head that they’ve really put the bat on the ball and deserve what they get.

“What we want to take away is all the bloopers.”

Hail, Nathan: Taft might have found a front-line starting pitcher in sophomore right-hander Nathan Voytek, a first-year transfer from Washington, Penn.

In his first start, Voytek tossed a one-hitter in an 8-0 victory over Venice last Friday.

Family affair: Familiarity on the Newbury Park baseball field is relative for Bryant Fick, a junior pitcher. One of Fick’s uncles, Robert Fick, is the team’s catcher. Another uncle, Chuck Fick, is an assistant coach.

Bryant’s father, Bill, 38, is the older brother of Chuck, 35, and Robert, 17.

Robert, a junior transfer from Thousand Oaks, was 10 for 17 with four doubles and seven runs batted in last week in the Loara tournament. Bryant earned a save during the Panthers’ only tournament win.

Track trivia: Antelope Valley’s Brock Chase cleared a meet-record 6 feet 10 inches in the high jump Saturday in the Ventura Relays at Larrabee Stadium.

Whose record did Chase break?

Near giant-slayer: Sylmar players are still kicking themselves for the one that got away last week.

Sylmar and Rio Mesa were tied, 4-4, in the bottom of the sixth inning and Sylmar had runners at second and third with one out. Sylmar Coach Gary Donatella signaled for a suicide squeeze, but the batter popped up the bunt and Rio Mesa doubled up the runner at third.

Rio Mesa, The Times’ top-ranked team in the area, scored four times in the seventh and won, 8-5. “We had a chance to beat ‘em and blew it,” Donatella said.

Making a racket: Matt Leising did not allow a hit in five innings in Glendale’s 16-2 victory over La Canada last week in his first outing on the mound.

Leising, a senior, played on the tennis team for the past three seasons before coming out for baseball this season.

The game must go on: When umpires failed to show for the Hart-Edison game in Huntington Beach last weekend, the teams waited for more than a half-hour before a spectator, a friend of Edison Coach Paul Harrell, was recruited to umpire.

“It was just some guy out of the stands dressed in a blue polo shirt,” Hart Coach Bud Murray said. “I was grateful that he did it, but he did nothing to help us.”

Murray said the thought of postponing the game never entered his mind. “We traveled all the way to Edison,” he said. “It’s halfway on the other side of the moon’s orbit. We were down there to play.”

Hart lost, 8-7, after blowing a 7-3 fifth-inning lead.

Add Hart: R. J. Simone struck out 11 in a 5-3 victory over Hawthorne. Simone was an All-Foothill League selection as an outfielder as a junior and was a catcher his freshman year. He missed his sophomore season after suffering a broken leg in a skiing accident.

“He’s an interesting story,” said Murray, who observed Simone pitching during a Colt League game over the summer. “I thought he had a nice arm and asked him if he wanted to try to pitch. He’s got some really good stuff.”

Tuning up: The good news at Crespi is that senior pitcher Rick Marino’s arm is feeling well enough for him to throw.

Marino, the Celts’ No. 1 starter, became a question mark over the winter because of a sore arm.

But Marino recently told Coach Scott Muckey that he was ready and he pitched in Crespi’s loss to El Segundo last week.

Marino had a fairly rough outing, allowing five runs (two earned) and four hits in three innings. “It wasn’t vintage,” Muckey said. “But his arm is OK. Now, we’ve just got to get him sharp.”

Trivia answer: Chase bettered the 6-8 mark set in 1981 by Santa Barbara High’s Randall Cunningham, now the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Mike Glaze and staff writers Steve Elling, Paige A. Leech, Brian Murphy and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.