Knights beat Walla Walla 11-4, win WCL crown.

Catcher Ryan Gorton (pictured) crushed a momentum-changing 3-run homer in the first and Corvallis never trailed again in an 11-4 victory over the Sweets.

The lopsided victory gave the Knights their second West Coast League championship, bookending the crown they won in 2008.

Outfielder Kramer Scott of University of Portland complemented Gorton's heroics with plenty of his own in continuing his amazing postseason tear. The senior-to-be went 3-for-5 with a solo homer, a double and an RBI single to raise his playoff average to .625 (10-16), with seven RBIs.

"I just wanted to have fun, because if you're having fun you're relaxed," said Scott, who had at least one hit and one RBI in all five postseason games. "If you�re relaxed, you�ll play better."

The Knights positioned themselves for their first WCL championship since 2008 � a title also won on August 18, coincidentally - by prevailing 14-3 in Walla Walla on Tuesday in Game 1. They wrapped it up on Thursday in convincing style before a record playoff crowd of 1,646 at Goss Stadium.

The Knights led at the end of every inning in the finals against the Sweets, who stunned top-seeded Wenatchee 2-0 in the East Division playoffs to reach the Championship Series in just their second season. Corvallis outscored the Sweets 25-7 in the finals and won its final four playoff games by a combined 33-12 count after dropping the divisional series opener 3-1 at Bend on August 12.

"This group came together, they figured out when you trust each other and play together great things can happen," Knights coach Brooke Knight said as he accepted the championship trophy from WCL president Ken Wilson, shortly before receiving the traditional post-game celebratory drenching from his jubilant players.

"It's a memory they will have for the rest of their lives."

Gorton's blast over the SunWize Technologies sign if left field erased a 2-0 Sweets lead and completely changed the tenor of the game. It was his second homer of the series; he had a solo blast on Tuesday.

"It's always big when you can answer back to Walla Walla's two runs in the first inning," said Gorton, who also won a WCL title in 2009 while playing at Wenatchee. "It definitely pumped us up and changed the momentum of the game."

Gorton had four RBIs on Thursday and finished the two-game series with two homers, a double, seven RBIs and a .625 (5-8) batting average.

The Knights added two runs in the third, got a towering solo homer from third baseman Jimmy Allen of Cal Poly in the fifth and wrapped it up with three runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh, one on Scott�s bomb to right field.

Corey Moore of PLU had two singles and a double; Trent Oleszczuk, David Armendariz and Allen added RBIs, and Connor Hofmann and Matt Nylen doubled as the Knights pounded out 15 hits to raise their series total to 33 hits.

Reliever Nick Hoover pf UC Irvine was credited with the win and Eric Young pitched the ninth as both concluded their three-year Knights' careers with a championship. Starter Max Beatty of PLU went 4.2 innings and shut the Sweets down after giving up a two-run homer to Andrew Mendenhall with one out in the first.

Hoover, Ben Wetzler of OSU, Jimmie Sherfy of Oregon, Mitch Patito of UC Riverside and Eric Young of Delaware finished the job in relief of Beatty.

Corvallis ended the summer with 27 wins in its last 33 games, a torrid streak that started after it had lost 5 of 6 to Wenatchee and Bend on June 30-July 5. They won their final nine regular-season series, both playoff series, and did not lose back-to-back games in that span.

The Knights are now 2-2 in their four WCL Championship Series appearances. They lost 2-0 to Moses Lake in 2007, defeated Wenatchee 2-0 in 2008, lost 2-0 to Wenatchee in 2009 and swept the Sweets this summer.

The crowd of 1,646 increased the final season attendance to a franchise-record 42,447 in 33 dates. That's an average of 1,286 per opening and an improvement of 10,911 over the old standard of 31,536 in in 2009, also in 33 dates.