The Knights were founded in 1990. With the support of a primary sponsor with vision and unwavering care – Penny Knight – the team has grown considerably over the years. After starting play in a Beaverton, Oregon recreational baseball league, the Aloha Knights settled into the Portland City League in 1994. In 1999, the club left the City League and joined the Northwest’s premier semi-pro wood-bat circuit – the Pacific International League (PIL). The club’s PIL era concluded with a summer national championship as the Knights won the 70th NBC World Series in Wichita, Kansas.
The Knights 2004 NBC World Series championship culminated a great run in the PIL, which saw the club post the league’s top six-year mark with a 117-67 league record. In 2005, the Knights joined forces with the Bend Elks, Wenatchee AppleSox, Bellingham Bells, Kelowna Falcons, Spokane RiverHawks and expansion Kitsap BlueJackets to form the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League for college-eligible players only.
The league is now called the West Coast League (WCL) and features eleven teams and two divisions. The Knights will be members of the South in 2017 with Bend, the Cowlitz Black Bears, the Gresham GreyWolves, the Yakima Valley Pippins and the newest WCL team – the Port Angeles Lefties. The North will be made up of Bellingham, Kelowna, the Victoria HarbourCats, Walla Walla Sweets and Wenatchee.
The West Coast League will begin its thirteenth season in 2017 with the Knights leading the west’s premier summer college wood-bat league in total wins after twelve years with 386 regular-season victories; Wenatchee is second with 343 wins.
After 17 years based in the Portland metro area, the team relocated to Corvallis, Oregon in 2007, changed its name from the Aloha Knights to Corvallis Knights and started play at Goss Stadium, the home of the 2006 & 2007 national champion Oregon State Beavers.
The Knights have become the WCL’s most successful franchise since relocating to the Mid-Valley. They captured their first West Coast League title in their second season at Goss Stadium, and added championships in 2011, 2013 and 2016.
This past season, the Knights made their tenth consecutive playoff appearance by securing a postseason berth by winning the South first-half. The team also eclipsed the 50,000 total attendance mark for the first time setting franchise records with a per game average of 1,534 and total attendance of 53,703. Corvallis captured its fourth title by sweeping Yakima Valley in the first-round and then beating Bellingham in the WCLCS 2 games to 1.
Corvallis has shown remarkable growth off the field and enjoyed consistent success on the diamond since relocating from Gresham for the 2007 season.
In that first summer at Goss Stadium, the Knights won the West Division regular-season title and eliminated Kitsap in the West Divisional Series before getting swept by Moses Lake in the WCLCS. They drew 12,729 fans, a huge increase over their final year at Mt. Hood CC.
Over 27 years of competition, the club has registered a .691 overall winning percentage and won several championships including the granddaddy of them all – the semi-pro NBC World Series.
The Knights followed their summer national championship season with an impressive inaugural showing in the West Coast League. The 2005 team posted a 27-9 league mark, which was good for second place. During the pre-season, Aloha swept a three-game series vs. the Humboldt Crabs at Arcata Baseball Park and in the postseason the Knights defended its NBC World Series title by extending their NBC win streak to 10 before eventually losing in the winner’s bracket semi-finals and subsequent quarterfinals to finish in 4th place. At that time, the sweep of the Crabs carried great significance in that Humboldt had never been swept in its glorious 61-year history (as of 2005).
In 2004, the Knights won their third annual All-American Invitational – hosted at Oslund Field at Mt. Hood CC – for the first time to earn a berth in the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kansas. At the NBC World Series, the Knights went 7-0 to become the first undefeated NBC champion since Team USA in 1995 and the first NBC champ from Oregon since 1958. In 27 years of play, the team has compiled a 1,023-458 record, eight WCL West/South titles, one WCL South first-half title, three Portland City League championships, three PIL South titles, a Kamloops International Baseball Tournament championship and four West Coast League crowns.
Over three decades, Knights rosters have featured 165 players who went on to sign with MLB clubs. 44 former Knights are active affiliated pros, including eleven who appeared in major-league games in 2016.
The squad is made up of collegiate players primarily from the West Coast.
Knights Tales
Our alumni have lots of great stories to tell. Each has a Knight’s Tale to share, like alum Jeremy Ainsworth (pictured) who was the Corvallis Knights head trainer from 2007-2017. Like many of our alums, he’s taken that next step and advanced his career after developing with the Knights. Jeremy is now the head trainer for Oregon State Baseball. Way to go Jeremy! Check out our Knights Tales to read more about our extraordinary alumnus and where they are at today.
In the Pros
Many Knights alums have realized their dreams of playing professionally, and some have reached the big leagues including Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Chris Stewart (pictured), who starred for the Knights in 2001.
Check out all the Knights playing affiliated ball for a living In the Pros. Stewart is joined by other former Knights in the big leagues like Mitch Haniger of the Mariners, Matt Duffy of the Rays and Matt Boyd of the Tigers. All three played on the 2010 Corvallis club.
In College
All our Knights are enrolled at Universities and Colleges across the country. Our student-athletes come from primarily out west and from partner schools like UC Riverside, where two-year Knight Michael Farris (pictured) is a senior this spring; and Oregon State, Oregon, Washington, Washington State, Portland, Cal Poly, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco.
You can check out all our boys still playing spring ball In College. There are links to all our eligible alums team websites.
Alum Listing
We take great pride in our alums and have accounted for all players from 1990-2017 that have donned the Knight uniform, including Corvallis greats like shortstop Peter Van Gansen and pitcher Casey Bloomquist of long-time partner school Cal Poly (pictured, l-r, following the 2013 WCL championship game).
Alums are listed from A-Z along with the years they played with the Knights, their position and their school (for players who played in the team’s summer collegiate era).