All Over but the Shouting

Woodland Hills Manager Jim Hock gathered his dejected team while Thousand Oaks celebrated its 7-3 victory Friday and said, “You win with class, and you lose with class. Hold your heads high.”

Too bad parents on both sides weren’t in the dugout to hear the message along with the kids.

Any semblance of class dissipated into the overcast skies after the sectional championship game when the father of a Thousand Oaks player jumped out of his car in the parking lot and engaged in a shouting match with the mother of a Woodland Hills player, who profanely shouted him down before he retreated into his car and sped away.

The incident interrupted discussion among Woodland Hills administrators about whether to protest the eligibility of Thousand Oaks’ winning pitcher, Cody Cipriano, who lives in an Agoura Hills neighborhood that both Woodland Hills and Thousand Oaks claim as within their boundaries.

Woodland Hills has until 10 a.m. today to file the protest, the time Thousand Oaks begins its first-round divisional game against Mission Viejo in La Puente.

Thousand Oaks believes a protest would not be upheld because Carl Magee, Little League’s Western Region administrator, informed both leagues in a February letter that any player residing in the disputed area could play for either league until boundaries are clarified this fall.

Woodland Hills administrators, however, point to a December letter signed by Magee stating that Agoura Hills is, in fact, within Woodland Hills boundaries.

About all anyone can agree on is that a protest would be yet another black eye for Little League’s image, which has taken a severe and sustained beating for a week.

Since Encino Little League backers dug through trash cans to find evidence that Woodland Hills players Junior Garcia and Garrett Feig do not live within the Woodland Hills boundaries, each day brought a barrage of charges and appeals that did not cease until Thursday when a Superior Court judge summarily tossed the case back to Little League.

Notably, only the players on the field each evening emerged untarnished.

After falling in the first round to Thousand Oaks, Woodland Hills won four consecutive games to force Friday’s championship game. Thousand Oaks, in turn, bounced back from Thursday’s 4-3 loss to Woodland Hills with a spirited performance in the final that was capped by a four-run sixth inning.

“Woodland Hills is one of the best teams in the state, if not the country, and it took a great performance by our kids to eliminate them,” Thousand Oaks Manager Ed Kitchen said.

Although the strength of both teams is powerful hitting, Cipriano and Jimmy Roberts of Woodland Hills came through with gutty pitching performances.

Cipriano, also the winning pitcher in the first-round victory over Woodland Hills, allowed seven hits and was victimized by four errors, but he walked only one, struck out six and stranded six runners.

Roberts gave up seven hits as well, but he struck out eight and stranded seven runners. He was overpowering early, but Thousand Oaks turned three walks into runs to take a 3-1 lead.

Jon Contos and Robby Kaufman walked to open the second. Contos scored on a ground ball by Konrad Thieme and Kaufman came home on a pinch single by Drew Saberhagen, son of major league pitcher Bret Saberhagen.

Amin Abusaleh answered with a home run to lead off the bottom of the second, but Thousand Oaks scored again in the third when another walk to Contos was cashed in on a single by Bryan Huston.

Thousand Oaks added four runs in the sixth on hits by Thieme, Cipriano, Kaufman and Huston.

Hits by Josh Jones, Dave Mughadem and Dusty Destler produced two runs for Woodland Hills in the bottom of the sixth, but Cipriano struck out the last two batters.

“I wasn’t worried,” Cipriano said. “The runs my team scored gave me a lot of comfort.”

Kitchen, who coached Thousand Oaks teams to the 13-year-old World Series championship in 1994 and the 15-year-old World Series final in 1996, realizes many more challenges await his team on the road to Williamsport, Pa.

The next is today’s opponent, Mission Viejo, which defeated Thousand Oaks in the state final two years ago when these same players met as 10-year-olds.

“Now a different journey begins,” he said.

For Woodland Hills, the quest is over, and attention must turn to repairing the league’s image.

“We’ve got 500 fantastic kids in Woodland Hills Sunrise Little League and a lot of dedicated volunteers,” one administrator said. “It’s time we got back to thinking about them.”