Doherty shuts down Gems, Knights sweep.

Cole Doherty (pictured) pitched 5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief on Wednesday and Corvallis completed a sweep of Klamath Falls with a 6-2 win at Goss Stadium.

The Knights (23-15 all, 18-15 WCL) won their eighth straight WCL game. They stretched their overall winning streak to nine games and improved to 15-1 in their last 16 games against all competition.

They also drew even with Yakima Valley (18-15) in the race for the WCL's wild-card playoff berth. The Pippins lost 6-4 at Kitsap on Wednesday night.

A rising senior left-hander from the University of Portland, Doherty entered a scoreless game with one out in the third inning and runners at the corners. He struck out the next two Gems to retire the side, then allowed just two hits over the next five innings in his most effective outing since a one-run, seven-inning stint at Wenatchee on June 12.

"No one expects to come in that early but that early you have to approach it as a start," he said.

He struck out seven, walked one, and lowered his ERA from 7.56 to 5.64 in his first WCL appearance since June 28. He faced just two batters over the 5.2-inning minimum and improved to 2-1.

"[Catcher Ryan] Matranga and I had a good game plan and knew what we wanted to do," Doherty added. "We wanted to do fastballs early and they weren't hitting it, so we just kept going with that."

The Knights took a 3-0 lead in the third on Christian Donahue's (Oregon State) RBI triple, Emilio Alcantar's (Linn-Benton CC) RBI groundout and an error. Two more errors led to three unearned runs in the sixth that doubled the cushion to 6-0.

Wednesday's crowd of 1,654 increased the season attendance to 32,823 in 23 dates. The Knights are 3,879 fans ahead of their 2014 total through a corresponding number of openings.

The Knights head north on Thursday for a key three-game series against Yakima Valley. Washington State righty Ryan Walker (2-2, 5.17) will start the opener; all three games start at 7:05 p.m.