Thursday, July 31, Corvallis, Ore. – The Knights finished off a series and season sweep of Walla Walla with an 8-2 win in the finale of their South Division series at Goss Stadium.
It was the sixth win in a row and the ninth in the last 10 starts for the streaking Knights (38-14 all, 34-14 WCL, 17-4 second half). They remained in first place in the South Division’s second-half pennant race, percentage points ahead of first-half champion Portland.
Starter Trey Swygart (Portland) muzzled the Sweets on five hits over five innings to earn his first victory of the summer to accompany two saves. He struck out five, did not issue a walk, and threw 54 strikes on 75 pitches.
He had a shutout until the Sweets strung together three two-out singles in the fifth. However, he ended the inning with his final strikeout, stranding runners at second and third.
Swygart has an 0.66 ERA in 13.2 innings over four appearances, with 12 strikeouts, two walks and eight hits allowed. He was the Washington Park Advisors Player of the Game.
Tanner Douglas (Oregon State, pictured above) followed with three innings of hitless relief. He fanned five straight batters at one point and had six overall in his longest and finest outing of the summer.
Corvallis grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first on a Maverek Russell (UCLA) sacrifice fly. An RBI double by Xavier Rios (CSUN) off the top of the center-field fence and Blake Wilson’s (Washington) two-run single highlighted a four-run fourth that made it 5-0.
Brock Ketelsen (Stanford) and Thomas Ferroggiaro (Santa Clara) drove in runs in a three-run sixth that gave the Knights a commanding 8-1 advantage.
Cole Katayama-Stall (Portland) and Maddox Riske (USC) were each 3-for-5 with a run. Wilson had two hits, two runs and two RBIs and scored six times in the series. Ketelsen had two hits, two steals, an RBI and a run.
The crowd of 1,348 raised the season attendance to 44,827. That’s an average of 1,601 in 28 openings.
Corvallis plays at Springfield over the weekend. Scheduled starters at Luke Kalfsbeek (Cal Poly) on Aug. 1, Troy Cooper (Cal Poly) on Aug. 2 and Zach Johnson (Linfield) on Aug. 3.