At this point, the bigger story might just be when things don’t happen to the Chatsworth High baseball team.

Say, if the Chancellors didn’t play their way into the CIF- City Section title game.

But that hasn’t happened in seven years.

Or, if they didn’t win a West Valley League title.

Since 1981, that’s only happened three times (1990, 1993, 2002).

Or maybe, if they weren’t named the top seed in City Section.

They are on six straight years and counting as the top-ranked team in the playoffs.

With 19-year head coach Tom Meusborn at the helm, it’s a City dynasty that doesn’t look like it will be overthrown anytime soon.

“It’s a great feeling. This team is known across the nation,” said junior shortstop Kasey Toven, after his team’s 7-2 win over No. 2 seed Narbonne to win the City title on May 31. “When we put these jerseys on we play for the team on front, not our names on the back. That’s why we’re so successful.”

The Chancellors (29-5) strengthened that national reputation when they were named the national champions by USA Today in 2003 and 2004. In June 2007, shortstop Mike Moustakas was taken straight out of Chatsworth as the second overall pick by the Kansas City Royals, while teammate and third baseman Matt Dominguez was the 12th overall pick, taken by the Florida Marlins. Having two top-15 picks in the same year prompted a New York Times article in the same month to deem the Chancellor’s baseball program “the official capital of prep baseball.”

After all the acclaim last season, Meusborn said he thought outsiders expected this to be somewhat of a down year for Chatsworth. If draft picks are any indication of talent level, there were no Chancellors taken in the 50 rounds of the Major League Baseball draft this season, held June 4-5.

But still, the group of six seniors, eight juniors, and two sophomores got the same results as last year’s team.

“They are a special group,” Meusborn said after the program’s eighth City Section title, a City record. “We had a lot of very talented players last year. We weren’t on paper supposed to be quite as talented and no one really put us in this game except for us. So our guys were up to the challenge.”

The Chancellors wrapped up their seventh title under Meusborn capitalizing on Narbonne’s mistakes (two errors) and getting contributions from just about everyone. It all started on the mound with senior Trevor Takeyama, who threw a complete game, giving up two runs on five hits to the Gauchos (27-7) improve his sparkling record to 14-1 on the season.

Trying to protect a 1-0 lead that Chatsworth had on a RBI-single by Ryan Cooperstone, Takeyama ran into trouble in the first inning, allowing a run on an RBI-single by Kahana Fitsemanu with just one out. With two runners still on base, Takeyama got out of the jam on some stellar defense by his shortstop Toven.

On consecutive plays, Toven threw out two over-aggressive Gauchos base runners at the plate, minimizing the damage and getting out of the inning tied 1-1.

“Those were key plays,” Takeyama said. “They’ve been doing that all year. The defense has been tremendous.”

From there, Chatsworth coasted, taking a 6-1 lead after a three-run fourth-inning. It avenged an 8-5 loss to Narbonne on April 19 in the Chatsworth Tournament.

“We felt we were a better than we were five six weeks ago when we played them,” Meusborn said. “I think we showed that we are a better team now than we were six weeks ago.”

Chatsworth loses six seniors, but it doesn’t look like Meusborn has much to worry about. The Chancellor’s junior varsity team made it a City Section sweep, taking the junior varsity title with a 3-1 win over Banning on May 29.

With a reloaded team for the 2009 season, Meusborn will try to make it a three-peat.

“It never gets old,” he said.

NOTES: Granada Hills Charter won the Invitational Division of the City Section with a 1-0 win over Bell on May 31 at Dodger Stadium. Freshman pitcher Matthew Troupe threw a four-hit shutout. Highlander head coach Josh Lienhard leaves his post at Granada Hills to take over the baseball program at El Camino Real. Assistant Steve Thompson will take over for the Highlanders, who is returning to the head coaching job after a five-year break from the position.

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