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 twelve teams and two divisions. The Knights are members of the South Division with Bend, the Cowlitz Black Bears, the Portland Pickles (formerly the Gresham GreyWolves), the Ridgefield Raptors, and the Walla Walla Sweets. The North is made up of Bellingham, Kelowna, the Port Angeles Lefties, the Yakima Valley Pippins, the Victoria HarbourCats and Wenatchee.
The West Coast League will begin its 16th season in 2020 with the Knights leading the west’s premier summer college wood-bat league in total wins after fifteen years with 498 regular-season victories; Wenatchee is second with 426 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, and 2018 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 league championships in 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
This past season, the Knights made their 13th consecutive playoff appearance by securing a postseason berth by winning both the South first-half and second-half titles. The team also set a new franchise total attendance mark drawing 59,372 fans to Goss Stadium in 2019. Corvallis captured its seventh WCL crown by edging Victoria two games to one in the club’s eleventh West Coast League Championship Series (WCLCS) appearance.
Corvallis has shown remarkable growth 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 their first WCLCS appearance. They drew 12,729 fans, a huge increase over their final year at Mt. Hood CC’s Oslund Field.
Over 30 years of competition, the club has registered a .694 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 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 30 years of play, the team has compiled a 1,157-510 record, eleven WCL West/South titles, three WCL South first-half titles, three WCL South second-half title, three Portland City League championships, three PIL South titles, a Kamloops International Baseball Tournament championship and seven West Coast League crowns.
Over three decades, Knights rosters have featured 174 players who went on to sign with MLB clubs and play affiliated professional baseball. 46 former Knights were active affiliated pros in 2019, including 10 in Major League Baseball.
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 Knights Tale to share, like alumus Jeremy Ainsworth (pictured) who was the Corvallis Knights head trainer from 2007-2017. Like many of our alumni, he took that next step and advanced his career after developing with the Knights. Jeremy moved from head trainer of the Knights to head trainer of Oregon State Baseball. He’s now working for PT Northwest. Check out our Knights Tales to read more about our extraordinary alumnus and where they are at today.
In the Pros
Many Knights alumnus have realized their dreams of playing professionally, and some have reached the big leagues including catcher Chris Stewart (pictured with the Pittsburgh Pirates), who starred for the Knights in 2001 and enjoyed a 12-year career in MLB.
Check out all the Knights playing affiliated ball for a living including alumni from the 2010 Knights club: Mitch Haniger of the Mariners, Matt Boyd of the Tigers and Matt Duffy.
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 Oregon State, Oregon, Washington, Washington State, Portland, Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, Stanford, Utah, UCLA and Gonzaga.
You can check out all our boys still playing spring ball. There are links to all our eligible alumnus’ team websites.
Alum Listing
We take great pride in our alumni and have accounted for all players from 1990-present that have donned the Knight uniform, including Corvallis greats like shortstop Peter Van Gansen and pitcher Casey Bloomquist of longtime 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).