Knights crush Sweets in WCL finals opener.

Ryan Gorton (pictured) homered, doubled and drove in three runs and Cade Gotta tripled, doubled, singled twice and collected three RBIs as Corvallis took game one at Walla Walla.

The Knights moved to within one win of their first West Coast League championship since 2008 with a convincing victory before a record crowd of 2,380 at Borleske Stadium.

The Knights pounded out 18 hits off four Sweets pitchers, led by right fielder Gotta and designated hitter Gorton. And Corey Davis continued his hot playoff hitting with three hits.

Outfielder Kramer Scott added two hits and an RBI; he has at least one hit and one RBI in all four of the Knights' playoff games. Trent Oleszczuk also had two hits, as did Matt Nylen and Corey Moore; every player in the starting lineup had at least one hit.

Wednesday is a travel day; the best-of-3 series resumes at Goss Stadium at 6:40 p.m. Thursday. The scheduled starters are RHP Max Beatty (6-1, 2.42) for the Knights and LHP Kyle Anderson (1-2, 2.31) for the Sweets.

Game 3 (if necessary) is set for 6:40 p.m. Friday, also at Goss Stadium. Corvallis is now 26-6 since being swept by Bend on July 3-5, and has not lost consecutive games in that span. It has also won three straight playoff games after ending a five-game playoff losing streak with a victory over Bend this past Saturday.

Corvallis scored twice in the first and took an insurmountable 8-1 lead with six runs in the fourth, aided by some shoddy Sweets' fielding. Corvallis added three in the fifth, another in the seventh and two more in the eighth to answer the Sweets every time they cut the margin to less than 10 runs.

The Sweets had ample scoring opportunities but starter Dylan Stuart and relievers Kyle Hart, Scott Schultz and Nick Hoover consistently escaped trouble to keep separation, when it could have been much closer had the Sweets cashed in on their ample opportunities. Hart got the win and Chris Mendoza finished the game tossing a perfect ninth.

The Knights are making their fourth Championship Series appearance. They lost 2-0 to Moses Lake in 2007, defeated Wenatchee 2-0 in 2008 and lost 2-0 to Wenatchee in 2009. A second-year expansion franchise, the Sweets are in the finals for the first time.