AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL / JEFF FLETCHER : Competition Remains Hot for Players From Rival High Schools

The uniforms don’t matter when the players are from Chatsworth and El Camino Real high schools. The games will be exciting.

Valley North (base school: Chatsworth) and Woodland Hills West (El Camino Real) played an American Legion doubleheader Saturday, and both games had dramatic finishes.

In the opener, Woodland Hills West trailed, 8-5, and loaded the bases with two out in the bottom of the seventh. Woodland Hills West’s Gavin Bible doubled down the right field line. Two runs scored and Brad Marks headed for the plate.

Right fielder Brian Wittman’s throw bounced past catcher Tony Ardito, but the ball ricocheted off the fence and came back to Ardito, who tagged out Marks to end the game.

“It’s amazing,” Valley North Coach Pete Redfern said. “That’s not really something that happens every day.”

In the second game, Woodland Hills West won, 6-5, getting out of jam in the seventh with a double play started by shortstop Justin Balser, who made a good play on a ground ball headed up the middle.

Chatsworth and El Camino Real met in the past two City Section 4-A finals at Dodger Stadium, with El Camino Real winning both by 7-6 scores. The Conquistadores won this year in nine innings after Chatsworth scored five runs to tie the score in the seventh. In 1993, Chatsworth took a 5-0 lead before El Camino Real rallied for the victory.

“We always have great games with them,” said Redfern, who is the Chatsworth pitching coach.

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Careful, it’s catching: Want to be a catcher for Newbury Oaks? Better have a good health plan. The team has gone through several catchers already because of a unlucky string of injuries.

It started with Jeff Bennett, who had to quit the team after elbow problems became too severe. Clint Harris was the catcher Saturday, and he jammed his finger sliding into home plate. Buzzy Ketchum caught Sunday, and he hurt his thumb when he slammed it into a bat making a throw to third base.

Coach Joel Silverstein said Harris and Ketchum should both be back by Saturday’s key matchup against first-place Westlake-Royal, but the team will be struggling for two midweek makeup games.

Greg Aguilar or John Shaw will have to catch, and neither is an experienced catcher.

“It will be an adventure,” Silverstein said.

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Contrast: Natural rivals Granada Hills East and Granada Hills West played a strange doubleheader Saturday.

In the first game, East won, 1-0, with a run in the top of the seventh. But in the second game, West won, 16-13.

“That first game was 1 hour 40 minutes and was a great game,” West Coach Ed Pikor said, “and we came back after everyone stopped to get something to eat and we had a football game. Same teams, I don’t know what happened. All of the sudden everyone started hitting the ball.”

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Good mixture: What do you get when you make Canyon and Hart players wear the same uniform?

A winner, it seems.

Although Newhall-Santa Clarita is composed of players from archrival high schools, the team is 12-3, well in front in the Central Division in District 20.

“I really don’t have a problem (with team unity),” said Coach Pat Eggleston, an assistant at Canyon during the spring. “The two teams put together make a great squad. Everyone is more or less quiet, and they understand what you have to do. They work together really well.”

Top hitters have been Hart’s Aaron Dean (.524, four home runs) and Canyon’s Mike Bench (.441). Top pitchers are Canyon’s Brent Davidson (3-2, 3.25 earned-run average) and Hart’s Bobby Graves (2.33, four saves).

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The O in Littlerock: One approach to Legion baseball is that it be used as preparation for the next high school season. Teams using this approach are inexperienced because they don’t use players who have graduated high school.

But no example of such a theory is more extreme than Littlerock, which is 0-14 this year after going 0-21 last year.

“If you want to win, fine,” Coach Dave Toledo said, “but we use Legion (to prepare) for the varsity season.”

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Familiar Voice: If you close your eyes at an Encino game, you might think you are listening to a BMW commercial.

Joe Campanella, whose name you might not recognize but whose voice you certainly would, is Encino’s public address announcer. Campanella, whose voice has been featured in hundreds of commercials during his 40 years as an actor, is also the father of Encino center fielder John Campanella.

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Recommending victory: Terry Stoller, District 20 chief umpire, said he will recommend to Area 6 Commissioner Charlie Hatfield that a victory be awarded to Sunland-Tujunga from the June 25 game against Van Nuys West that was originally ruled a double-forfeit.

A Van Nuys West player charged the mound that day after he was hit by a pitch. He then threw equipment onto the field and refused to leave after he was ejected. The umpires also had reason to believe the Sunland-Tujunga pitcher was intentionally throwing at batters, Stoller said, so they ruled a double-forfeit.

Stoller said he decided Sunland-Tujunga did not deserve the forfeit because the only evidence that the pitcher intentionally hit the batter was the word of a Van Nuys West player. The final decision will be Hatfield’s.

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Legion lines: Mike Weiss of Van Nuys South pitched 47 consecutive innings without giving up an earned run until Burbank South scored five against him in the sixth inning Sunday. Weiss’ ERA jumped from 0.00 to 1.80. . . .

West Hills’ Adam Crecion and Scott Shubeck combined to pitch a one-hitter against Valley North on Sunday. Jaime Cerna pitched a one-hitter for Sun Valley on Saturday against Burbank. . . .

Newbury Oaks’ Andy Wilson, who played at Oxnard College last spring, has a .933 slugging percentage. In 30 at-bats, he has 17 hits--seven for extra bases. . . .

Westlake-Royal’s Brian Schuster had the game-winning RBI in the eighth inning of the first game of a District 16 doubleheader against Ventura on Sunday. It was Schuster’s second extra-inning, game-winning hit this season. . . .

Westlake-Royal’s Joel Mellinger, who set a Royal High record with seven triples last spring, has three triples this summer. . . .

A District 20 All-Star team will face a team from Union, N.J., at 4:15 p.m. Thursday at Birmingham High. The District 20 team was selected by Commissioner Mel Swerdling from two District 20 All-Star teams that will play Sunday at Birmingham.