Gems win 4-1 in 11, trim Knights' lead to 1 game.

Trevor Frank (pictured) of UC Riverside pitched brilliantly for 6 2/3 innings but his performance was wasted as Klamath Falls scored three times in the 11th inning.

Corvallis scored in the second inning and Frank protected that lead until the seventh, when he surrendered the game-tying RBI single on a two-out, two-strike single by Gems' shortstop Connor George. Frank allowed three hits and struck out four in his longest outing of the summer.

The Knights (23-20 WCL, 26-20 overall) missed a chance to add a game to their divisional lead against Klamath Falls and Bend, each of whom trailed them by two games before Wednesday�s action. Bend lost 7-3 at Kitsap and had the Knights prevailed they would have established a three-game advantage over both pursuers.

Instead, they now lead the Gems (21-20 WCL) by a single game and the Elks (19-20) by two. The Gems are 19-2 since starting the summer 2-18 and Wednesday's victory ended the Knights' 10-game winning streak in the series.

Klamath Falls scored three times in the 11th on a two-out, two-run bleeder double by Austin Byler and Joshua Wong's bloop RBI single that center fielder Connor Hofmann just missed catching on a diving attempt.

Corvallis scored in the second on a double by Nick Torres, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by Nate Roberts. It was Roberts' fifth RBI in four WCL games since returning from a wrist injury.

The Knights squandered numerous opportunities to win in regulation, starting in the first inning, when they had runners at second and third with no outs but could not score. They had at least one runner in nine of the 11 innings.

They also had the bases loaded with one out in the ninth but Mahle hit into a 6-4-3 DP to send the game into extra innings. Corvallis stranded 11 runners in the first nine innings, seven in scoring position, and 12 overall, matching their season high.

After the Gems tied the game, relievers Taylor Starr and Devon Barker combined for 3.2 innings of scoreless relief. That got the Knights to the 11th before the Gems broke through against Kyle Hart and Greg Mahle to steal the Knights' longest game of the summer by innings and second-longest by time (3:12).

The crowd of 1,752 on Wilson Motors Night was the Knights' third-largest of the summer. It raised their season attendance to 31,231, the second-highest all-time since the team moved to Corvallis for the 2007 season.

The series concludes at 6:40 p.m. Thursday at Goss Stadium. The projected starters are right-handers Bryan Granger of Cal Poly (2-2, 1.76) for the Knights and Mitch Merten of UC Irvine (4-0, 1.62) for the Gems.

The Knights host the WCL Portland Lobos in nonleague games on Friday and Saturday nights.