Chatsworth Batters Depleted Taft : Prep baseball: With pitcher Voytek ineligible, Toreadors are no match for Chancellors, 13-0.

For two batters Tuesday, Taft High left-hander Justin Siegel looked remarkably like Nathan Voytek, the player he had been selected to replace.

Siegel, a sophomore, struck out the first two batters and had the third in a 1-and-2 hole.

Same grade. Same results.

Voytek, a sophomore who was deemed ineligible Tuesday for violating state rules governing transfer, watched in his street clothes from the stands. Many of Voytek’s teammates penned his uniform number on the back of their caps as a show of support. Before he was ruled ineligible, Voytek had rolled up 28 consecutive scoreless innings.

Siegel hit Thurman Williams, Chatsworth’s No. 3 batter, however, then the Chancellors hit him, scoring in five of their six at-bats to hammer Taft, 13-0, in a West Valley League game at Chatsworth.

In fact, it was Chatsworth junior Brandon Nickens (3-2) who did the best imitation of Voytek. Nickens allowed four hits, struck out five and walked one.

Before anyone could utter, Nathan Who? in the Taft dugout, Chatsworth had scored twice in the first inning off Siegel (0-1), who was relieved after 2 2/3 innings.

“I guess it would be easy to look at the score and say that we weren’t ready to play,” said Taft Coach Rich McKeon, alluding to the off-the-field distractions surrounding Voytek’s eligibility plight. “But I didn’t sense that.”

With an assist from a disjointed Taft defense, Chatsworth (12-6-1, 8-3-1 in league play) scored five runs in the second inning and two in the third to take a 9-0 lead--six runs were unearned--and chase Siegel in the third.

Nickens was placed in the two-man rotation two weeks ago out of necessity after Chatsworth starters Mitch Root and Doug Dean struggled--a move that now looks like pure genius. With seven scoreless innings, Nickens lowered his earned-run average to 1.78.

It has not hurt the former pitchers at the plate. Root, who hit a grand slam Thursday, had three hits and drove in five runs against Taft (9-11, 4-8). Dean added a single and scored a run.

Scott Carpenter also had three hits for Chatsworth and Adam Pearlman tripled and doubled and drove in three runs to pad his runs batted in total to 28, the most in the Northwest Valley Conference.