Longtime Spring Baseball Tournament to Sport 2 New Teams and a New Name

The name has changed and so has the competition.

Chatsworth and University highs have been added to the Holt-Willis high school baseball tournament, which will begin April 6 and for 20 years was known as the Holt-Goodman or Monroe tournament. For the first time, the 16-team tournament will be sponsored by Willis Sporting Goods of Reseda.

According to tournament organizer Wayne Sink of Birmingham High, this might be the final year of the tournament in light of the L. A. Unified School District’s proposal to adopt a year-round calendar for 1991-92. The three-day tournament runs during the district’s spring break and includes only City Section schools.

Rounding out the list of area teams in the tournament are Birmingham, Cleveland, Granada Hills, Grant, Kennedy, Monroe, North Hollywood, Poly, San Fernando, Sylmar and Taft. Eagle Rock, Venice and Westchester also are entered.

Chatsworth, which will begin first-round play on the road against Cleveland, replaces Van Nuys, which dropped out of the event. University replaces Verdugo Hills, which also withdrew, and will open at defending champion Birmingham.

The event also is named after one of the Valley’s most successful baseball coaches, Denny Holt, who retired from Monroe High and now lives in Hawaii.