Sunday, June 23, Springfield, Ore. – Corvallis finished its six-game series against Springfield with its fourth win in a row by defeating the Drifters 7-4 in a West Coast League matchup at the Hamlin Sports Complex.
Starter Laif Palmer (Oregon State) struck out four in three hitless innings in his Knights debut. Reliever Garren Rizzo (USC, pictured above) authored 2.1 innings of scoreless relief and was credited with his second victory of the summer.
Corvallis (18-3, 17-3 WCL) remained comfortably ahead of second-place Portland in the first-half South Division pennant race. The first-half champion earns an automatic berth in the postseason playoffs.
Kasen Khansarinia (UCLA) and Thomas Ferroggiano (Santa Clara) were each 2-for-4 with two runs scored for Corvallis. CJ Colyer (Pacific) and Paul Vazquez (OSU in 2024-25) drove in two runs each, and Brandon Cabrera (Lewis-Clark State) and Ty Yukumoto (Pacific) had run-scoring hits.
A Colyer sacrifice fly gave the Knights a 1-0 lead in the second inning and his RBI groundout, a run-scoring wild pitch and an RBI double by Cabrera made it 4-0 in the fourth. Colyer had a two-run homer against the Drifters on June 21 and totaled four RBIs in the two games played in Springfield.
Springfield drew within 4-3 before the Knights broke the game open by scoring three times in the eighth. Vazquez hit a two-run, two-out single for a 6-3 advantage and Yukumoto followed with a single to score Corvallis’s final run.
Rizzo entered with two on and two out in the fifth and got the third out to protect the 4-3 lead. He also pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh to keep the Knights ahead.
Grant Cleavenger (Nebraska) struck out the side on 12 pitches in the eighth. Cohen Gomez (Stanford in 2024-25) pitched the ninth.
Corvallis is idle on June 24, then opens a four-game series with the Cowlitz Black Bears at Goss Stadium on June 25. The Knights starter is TBA; Nate Moquin (1-1, 2.07) of Iowa Western CC is the probable for Cowlitz.
The teams play a 5 p.m. doubleheader June 26; both games will be seven innings. Corvallis will be the visiting team in the opener, the makeup of a game at Longview postponed by rain on June 2.
The Knights have not announced their pitchers. Jack Tuttle (0-0, 3.00) of Northern Colorado and Tyler Schott (0-0, 0.00) of Dallas Baptist will start for the Black Bears.