THE HIGH SCHOOLS / STEVE ELLING : Camarillo’s Hile Comes to Life Against Chatsworth Dynamo

Perhaps the Chatsworth High baseball team should have checked Dan Hile’s neck for protruding bolts. Green, pasty skin. Cranial flatness.

It took a big outing from Hile, a Camarillo left-hander, to stop power-hungry Chatsworth on Friday. It also took a big player.

Hile, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior who was an All-Channel League lineman for the Camarillo football team, struck out six and allowed three hits in a 7-2 win in a Westside tournament consolation game.

“He’s basically an experiment,” Camarillo Coach Jack Willard said. “He’s worked real hard from the first day of practice.”

Have they created a monster?

Willard said that Hile, who did not pitch last season, has allowed three runs and struck out 13 batters in 14 innings. Hile (2-0) also earned a decision in an 8-1 win over Santa Monica.

Chatsworth had scored 69 runs and hit 11 home runs in its six games before Friday.

The boys of spring: Most of the adjustable straps on the back of their red caps were cinched up to the final peg, like the belt on the trousers of an emaciated codger. These guys, however, were anything but old.

Taft’s youthful baseball team has been wonderful at times, not so at others. As is the case with a handful of other area City Section teams, it might take a season or two to tell whether the roster is full of Wunderkinds or Munchkins . The average size of Taft’s starting lineup is roughly 5-foot-8, 150 pounds.

“It’s that obvious, huh?” Coach Rich McKeon said rhetorically. “Yeah, we are a small team.”

At Taft, youth has been served. Or, more accurately, served up--rare.

The Toreadors have one senior on the team, center fielder Darnell Hendricks who spent a half-dozen games on the varsity last season before quitting. However, underclassmen such as juniors John Soto and Jason Biller have played well. Soto has three home runs and Biller had four hits last week against Chatsworth.

“That’s a good young team that’s going to give people some trouble over the next couple of years,” Chatsworth Coach Tom Meusborn said after the Chancellors had beaten Taft, 11-6.

Biller, Taft’s leadoff batter, typifies the diminutive stature of the team. He stands 5-7 and weighs 150 pounds--with cleats on and bat in hand. Of the eight position players plus the designated-hitter used against Chatsworth, four are sophomores.

After a 3-0 start, Taft lost three consecutive games.

Add kids: There are two other Northwest Valley Conference teams in the same boat. Both also are riding the crests and swales that come with inexperience.

Kennedy (4-3) has four sophomores in the starting lineup and just one senior, first baseman Travis Bourne, among position players. Kennedy lost its first two games, then won four in a row.

At Cleveland, which is winless in three starts, third baseman Mike Sutyak is the lone senior.

El Camino Real (2-1) is not far behind in aggregate age. The Conquistadores, City Section 4-A Division runners-up a year ago, had three sophomores and a freshman in their opening-day lineup.

Fastball, curveball, snowball: The baseball field at Quartz Hill High was blanketed by a quarter-inch of snow one hour before the Rebels’ 3 p.m. game Friday against Antelope Valley, according to Quartz Hill Coach Stan Lyons. The field, saturated after a week of intermittent rain, was a swamp by the time the snow melted.

The game has been rescheduled for after spring break, when conditions are expected to be more, well, more spring-like.

Flying frosh: Jeremy Fischer, a 5-9 freshman on the Camarillo track team, high jumped 6-4 in a dual meet against Westlake on Thursday. Among competitors in the region last season, only five boys jumped higher than 6-4, and two were seniors.