Wold Puts a Sock in Taft, 10-2

Greg Wold showed off his dark blue socks in knee-high fashion Thursday at Taft High.

Wold showed the Toreadors a lot more.

Wold, a senior right-hander for Chatsworth, put out a first-inning fire and struck out a season-high 11 batters in 6 1/3 innings to lead the Chancellors to a 10-2 West Valley League victory.

Chatsworth (13-7, 8-3 in league play), in completing a two-game sweep of the Toreadors (13-8, 6-5), rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the first inning, when Wold moved from second base and replaced Tom Morefield on the mound with two out and runners at second and third.

Wold (4-3) struck out Jason Spector, then retired 11 of the next 13 batters, including eight in a row. Wold struck out five straight from the third through the fifth inning.

Taft finished with only six hits, all singles, four of them against Wold.

“Wooly came in and did a great job,” Chatsworth Coach Tom Meusborn said. “He closed the door. He slammed it shut.”

As usual, Wold, who bats third, also was in the thick of a 13-hit attack that included 12 singles and a sixth-inning, two-run home run by Danny Eisenberg, who was celebrating his 17th birthday.

Wold was two for four, including a two-run single to cap a six-run fourth inning that gave Chatsworth a 7-2 lead.

“I just tried to throw what they weren’t expecting,” Wold said.

Wold was on the ropes in the sixth, when Taft loaded the bases with none out, but he struck out the side.

“He’s been starting and he’s been coming in in relief,” Meusborn said. “He’s done well in both.”

As for his uniform, Wold said it was not meant as a tribute to Jackie Robinson, a gesture in vogue among players.

“These are last year’s pants,” Wold said. “They don’t go down all the way.”

Taft’s defense did little to support starter Mike Turnette, who held the Chancellors to two hits through three innings and led, 2-1.

Two of Taft’s four errors came in the fourth inning.

The Toreadors’ frustration boiled over in the sixth, when reliever Jesse Chastain hit Nathan Frost with the first pitch following Eisenberg’s homer.

Chastain immediately was removed by Coach Rich McKeon.