LAST DAY OF INNOCENCE.

Byline: RAMONA SHELBURNE 

LOCAL

In a few days their whole lives will change.

Mike Moustakas, Matt Dominguez and Bobby Coyle will become professionals with million-dollar signing bonuses and threethousand-pound weights of expectations to carry around.

They will be held to a higher standard and saddled with responsibility. It won't be enough to try hard or give it your best.

Hit .299 and the fans will roast you. Hit .301 and they'll adore you.

You grow up very fast under those circumstances.

But on this day, maybe for the last time in their careers, only the final score mattered.

After two straight heartbreaking losses in City championship games at Dodger Stadium, Chatsworth finally came out on top, beating a scrappy Cleveland of Reseda team 2-1.

It wasn't their most impressive game of the year. Moustakas didn't hit any more home runs. Dominguez didn't smash any line drives in the gap. Coyle made a great catch in right field, but was held to just an infield single at the plate.

The Chancellors scored their runs on a ground-out to shortstop and a balk. But that's all immaterial now. And in five years, hardly anyone will even remember those details.

All that mattered Saturday was the final score and sharing one last game with their teammates.

"This is probably the best I've felt in my whole life," said a teary-eyed Moustakas, who is expected to be the first of the three Chatsworth players taken in the first five rounds of Thursday's Major League Baseball amateur draft. "Everyone of us was crying tears of joy. After everything we worked for, it all boiled down to this game.

"Losing here the last two years was so tough. I've been sick about it ever since. It's built up inside me, like it was crumbling my heart. ... There was no way we were leaving here without the 'W' this time. No way."

You couldn't have blamed any of them --Moustakas, Dominguez or Coyle -- for holding back a little, or even being a bit distracted. Huge decisions lay ahead. They'll weigh a professional contract against a college scholarship, audition sports agents who want to represent them and start setting up the next phase of their lives.

Whatever direction each of them goes, it'll never be as simple as it was Saturday when all that mattered was the final score.

"Now that the season is over, we can focus more on the draft," said Dominguez, who is projected to be a first-round pick. "But today, the only thing we cared about was winning a championship. That's been our No. 1 goal all year. There's nothing we wanted more."

Saturday's game was as much about redemption as it was pride for Chatsworth. Five straight times they've come to Chavez Ravine as the No. 1 seed, but only threetimes have they left with the championship trophy.

Those two losses stung more than anything. Not just because they wanted the trophy, but because they knew they hadn't played their best when it mattered.

"It's indescribable how much losing the last two years hurt," said Coyle, who was named the game's MVP for his defensive brilliance and crafty base running. "All year we said we were going to do whatever it took to get back here and whatever it took to win."

That's just what they did. Dominguez drove in Chatsworth's first run with a good piece of situational hitting, a ground ball to the shortstop that scored Nick Devian from third base. Twoplays later, Moustakas brazenly went first-to-third on Coyle's infield single.

After Matt Moreno popped up a sacrifice bunt, Coyle tried to get into a pickle in between first and second long enough for Moustakas to score from third and ended up drawing a balk from Cleveland starter Mickey Brodsky.

It wasn't pretty, as so many of Chatsworth's games have been this year. In fact, the game ended in ugly fashion with a controversial call at first base.

The hero of the game was senior pitcher Trent Jones, a relatively unheralded player who hasn't signed with a college.

"I really don't know what I'm doing yet," Jones said. "But this is about as good as it gets. That's all I was thinking about."

That's all any of them was thinking about.

Over the next few days and weeks, things will get a lot more complicated for Moustakas, Dominguez and Coyle. Statistics will matter. Money will matter. The opinions of scouts and general managers will matter.

Saturday, they were just kids playing for a City title, with eyes, still innocent and wide. Only the championship trophy mattered.

Moustakas, the team's emotional and physical leader, got his hands on the trophy first. His eyes were a little red, his powerful legs even seemed a bit weak. Dominguez walked over and hugged his friend as he held it up for the first time.

"It's a little sad," Dominguez said a few minutes later. "This was the last time we'll all play together. The last time we'll put this jersey on or play for coach (Tom) Muesborn.

"It's a little sad, but it was a great way to go out."

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