Spring Break
Knights streaking through summer
Large winning streak has been full of team, individual highlights for Corvallis Knights
Casey Grogan
Issue date: 7/1/09 Section: Sports
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Last season the Corvallis pitching staff and defense dominated the West Coast League on their way to a championship series victory over the Wenatchee AppleSox. This year, while the season is still very young, the Knights are putting themselves in a position to match up once again with the AppleSox in the 2009 version of the league championship.
"This team is different," said Knights head coach Brooke Knight. "The quality of the characters is good. It is still early and this game will humble you quickly, so we don't want to get too excited. It is nice to get out of the gates strong and put ourselves in the position to be successful at the end of the summer."
On June 18, the Knights began an incredible string of home games starting with the Portland Ports. The string of games stretches through this Friday night with games being played every single night, making Goss Stadium the home of 16 straight baseball games. Prior to the home stand, Corvallis had played nine straight and will head to Bend for two games on Saturday and Sunday.
The first break in the season will come on July 6, when Corvallis takes a nearly 550-mile bus ride from Bend to Kelowna, British Columbia. More impressive than the 27-straight games of baseball is how the Knights have performed over the stretch.
Corvallis has lit up the win column, and as of Monday's 11-1 victory over the Spokane RiverHawks, have won 14 straight games. Prior to winning the 14th game, Corvallis had already snapped the franchise record when they touched up the Moses Lake Pirates to win their 13th straight.
The streak has included three shutouts performances by the Knights pitching staff, all coming in WCL action. The first shutout came in Silverdale, Wash., when a trio of Knights shut down the Kitsap BlueJackets.
The second shutout came in a 7-0 victory over the Bellingham Bells in Corvallis. The game was the summer home debut of Oregon State freshman All-American Sam Gaviglio. The Ashland, Ore., native struck out seven in six innings before Eric Young and Dylan Jones relieved him.
Perhaps most impressive was the 5-0 win over the winless Moses Lake Pirates. Starting pitcher Matt Andriese of UC Riverside spun a complete-game three hitter, striking out nine Pirates hitters and walking none.
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