Knights Find a Way; Rally to Claim League Title.

Corvallis Secures Fourth WCL Championship

Not much went right for Corvallis for a long time Tuesday night.

The summer came down to one game, and Corvallis didn't play the way that carried the Knights through a successful season and into the West Coast League baseball championship series.

But Corvallis was the better team in the closing innings, finally finding some traction against a Bellingham team that was in control much of the night.

Roman Garcia's two-run home run in the seventh inning put the Knights ahead and Trenton Dupre closed it on the mound to give Corvallis a 6-4 win and its fourth WCL title at Goss Stadium.

"We always had hope. We always believed in our talent," said Garcia, whose team trailed 4-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh. "We relied on each other to come back, picked each other up the whole game."

Garcia, a first baseman who will be a senior at the University of San Diego this fall, was one the Knights top offensive players during the regular season and in the playoffs, hitting 8 for 21 with a home run, two doubles and six RBIs in five postseason games.

He called Tuesday's contest "probably the best game I've played in my life. I'll always remember this. I'll always remember the Knights and everyone around."

Corvallis was making its eighth appearance in the 12-year history of the WCL, a collegiate wood bat league. The Knights also won league titles in 2008, 2009 and 2013.

After struggling to start the second half of league play with a playoff berth already in hand thanks to a first-half division title, the Knights finished the season winning 14 of their last 16 games.

"We always score late and show a lot of fight late, and that's one of the special things about this team," said Matt Kelly, whose eighth-inning throw to the plate to complete a relay from the outfield led to an out and kept Corvallis ahead. "It's an awesome feeling. You can't describe it, you can't buy it. It's a feeling like no other."

Dupre, a left-handed senior-to-be at Washington State, pitched the last 1 1/3 innings and picked up his second save of the championship series. He retired all 13 batters he faced in the two appearances.

After creating a mess that left the Bells (35-24 WCL) with a 4-2 lead through six innings, the Knights (45-21 overall) had nine offensive outs to make something happen.

Emilio Alcantar was hit by a pitch as the leadoff batter in the seventh. He went to second on a wild pitch and to third on Kyle Nobach's strikeout before Andy Atwood's line single to center scored him.

One pitch later, Garcia took a Jeff Gelinas offering out to left field with a towering shot that gave the home team the improbable lead.

"You just don't know when you're going to run into one...they did early and then Roman hit the big swing and finally got the momentum back, and then we just had to pitch well at the end," said Corvallis coach Brooke Knight.

Bellingham looked certain to tie the game in the eighth with a runner on and Jake Vieth crushing a ball to deep right center.

David Banuelos came all the way around from first but was tagged out after Kelly's throw was just in time on a close play at the plate.

"Big-time relay. I mean, big-time relay," Knight said. "It starts with the outfielder (Nobach) picking it up, hitting Kelly...making a great throw to home and then a great catch and tag by Zak (Taylor). That ends up probably being the play of the game."

Chris Burkholder struck out the next batter, Gunnar Schubert, for out two, and Dupre came on to strike out Danny Casals to get the Knights back to the dugout unscathed and still holding a lead.

Alcantar provided some insurance with his two-out RBI single in the eighth.

Andrew Reichenbach singled, went to second on a groundout and scored.

It was an interesting day for Alcantar, who was back at Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston, Idaho, after a three-game league suspension for his second ejection of the season last week.

The last game of the suspension was Monday, with Bellingham taking a 5-2 decision at Goss and grabbing the momentum against a flat Knights squad.

If the series went to a game 3 in the best-of-three series, Alcantar told himself he was going to get back to Goss "no matter what."

It took three airplane rides Tuesday to get to Portland, from which he drove to Corvallis and arrived for batting practice a few hours before first pitch.

Alcantar said his team had energy early but was maybe a little too fired up, leading to some uncharacteristic plays on offense and defense, including five errors.

But the game eventually turned.

"That fifth, sixth inning, we kind of just settled down and say, 'hey, we've got to toughen up a little and we're going to do what we came here to do, which is win a championship,'" Alcantar said.