Chatsworth Baseball Gains Top Seeding

Unbeaten and defending champion Chatsworth (31-0) was seeded first and Marine League champion San Pedro (28-3) was seeded second for the City Section Championship Division baseball playoffs, which begin Friday at 3 p.m.

Woodland Hills El Camino Real (22-8), the West Valley League runner-up behind Chatsworth, was seeded third, followed by Valley Mission champion Granada Hills Kennedy (21-10), Sunset Six champion Sun Valley Poly (24-6), Western champion Palisades (20-5), Eastern champion L.A. Roosevelt (22-5) and Valley Mission runner-up Sylmar (19-11).

Bryan Petersen, the closer and starting outfielder for Chatsworth, underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on Wednesday and could miss most of the playoffs.

-- Eric Sondheimer

Softball

The City Section crowns a champion today when top-seeded San Pedro (28-3) and second-seeded Carson (28-8) meet in the title game for the fifth year in a row. Game time is set for 4:15 p.m. at UCLA.

The Marine League rivals, who split two games this season, feature two of the Southland’s top pitchers in San Pedro’s Ashley Esparza (19-1), who has won three section titles, and Carson’s Danira Iolamo (16-6), who has pitched two four-hitters against San Pedro, winning, 3-2, in eight innings on April 15.

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West Hills Chaminade, the third-seeded team in the Southern Section Division IV playoffs, was removed from the tournament Monday for violating playoff rules that prohibit game-day batting practice.

Chaminade (19-8-1), which had held a bunting drill on game day, had to forfeit its 1-0 first-round win over San Marino (20-6), which will play a second-round game today at Barstow.

-- Martin Henderson

Track and Field

Sophomore Emily Spiker of Ventura has been scratched from the entry list in the girls’ 1,600 meters for the Southern Section Masters Meet on Friday at Cerritos College because she broke a school rule while attending the prom Saturday night.

Spiker, the sister of former state boys’ 3,200 champion Josh Spiker, set a school record of 5 minutes 0.81 seconds while winning the Division II race of the girls’ 1,600 in the Southern Section championships Saturday at Cerritos College.

Senior Lauren Magdaleno of Santa Fe Springs St. Paul, who won the Division IV 1,600 title in 5:01.07 on Saturday, will replace Spiker in the field.

Senior Daniel Nunn of San Luis Obispo has withdrawn from the boys’ 1,600 in the Masters Meet so he can focus on the 3,200. He will be replaced by junior Alex Greenburg of Upland.

-- John Ortega

Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino for Bill Leeds, a former track coach at Encino Crespi and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. Leeds died on May 18 of cancer. He was 75.

-- Eric Sondheimer