After sailing through the District 16 schedule without a loss, Westlake-Agoura is braced for a showdown with Woodland Hills West in the first round of the Area 6 American Legion double-elimination playoffs today at 4 p.m. at Birmingham High in Van Nuys.
Westlake (28-3-4, 16-0 in district play) split two inter-district regular-season meetings with Woodland Hills (19-3), winning, 9-4, three weeks ago and losing, 9-5, last week. Westlake Coach Chuck Thompson doesn't place much importance on those games, however.
"I think we're pretty evenly matched," he said. "But in our earlier games both coaches were experimenting. It was far from intense head-to-head competition."
Facing off today will be pitchers Bobby Grandpre of Westlake and Lance Gibson of Woodland Hills. Grandpre, who attends the University of San Diego, is 9-0 with 65 strikeouts in 82 innings. Gibson, who attends College of the Canyons, is 6-1 with 59 strikeouts in 50 innings.