West Linn baseball falls in 4-1 upset loss to South Medford

Published 12:00 am Friday, May 30, 2025

By Miles Vance

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Not like this.

Not for the three-time defending state champion West Linn baseball team.

But the second-ranked Lions – hosting No. 18 South Medford in the second round of the Class 6A state playoffs – saw their reign in Oregon baseball come to a shocking end on Thursday, May 29. The Panthers scored four times in the top of the seventh inning and used that late outburst to beat the Lions 4-1 at West Linn High School.

“We just haven’t been playing the best baseball for weeks now,” said West Linn senior center fielder Danny Wideman, who went 2 for 3 at the plate with a double. “This team is pretty young – not a lot of playoff experience – so it’s just hard to (prepare for) these times and be clutch when you need to be clutch.”

“You know, some you win, some you lose – with your family, with your team,” said Lion senior pitcher Cole Hawkins, who threw 6.2 innings and allowed four runs – none earned – on four hits and two walks while striking out four. “You’ve got to, no matter what, you’ve just got to play on past that.”

“All season, we’ve been struggling defensively,” said West Linn junior right fielder/pitcher Caden Klouda, who doubled and scored his team’s lone run in the sixth. “We were able to tighten it up for a little bit, but it just got the best of us and that’s how this one worked.”

With the loss, the No. 2 Lions saw their four-game winning streak snapped and ended their season at 23-6 overall after winning the Three Rivers League. Further, the loss snapped West Linn’s state-record 16-game playoff winning streak, a streak that began way back on May 23 of 2022.

No. 18 South Medford, meanwhile, won for the second straight time and improved to 17-11 overall after finishing fifth in the Southwest Conference.

The Panthers’ win at West Linn was, for the longest time, a pitching duel between South Medford senior Tristan Mallari (he threw threw 6.2 innings and allowed just one run on two hits and four walks while striking out six) and Hawkins, with Mallari allowing just one hit in the first five innings, while Hawkins gave up just one hit to the Panthers in South’s first six at-bats.

But Klouda opened the bottom of the sixth with a double to center field, moved up on a groundout, then scored on junior Carson Dobile’s sacrifice fly to right field for a 1-0 lead.

That lead wouldn’t hold, however.

Panther senior Evan Rhoden led off the top of the seventh with an infield single, senior Grady McQuillan followed with a one-out single to left, Mallari reached base on a West Linn error and junior Brad Love added a bases-loaded walk that tied the game at 1-1.

South Medford junior Jake Lewis came through next with an RBI sacrifice fly to right, the Panthers pushed ahead by two runs on another West Linn error and then made it 4-1 when junior Easton Douglas singled to center.

“We got a little glimpse of us playing bad baseball (earlier), and, you know, I thought we kind of learned from it, but I guess not,” Wideman said.

“It just wasn’t our game,” Hawkins added. “You’ve got to look past the errors. You’ve got to still trust your teammates.”

Mallari got the first two outs in the bottom of the seventh before being pulled after throwing 110 pitches, but it didn’t matter. Lewis came on to strike out the final West Linn batter to seal South Medford’s upset win.

For the game, Rhoden went 1 for 4 at the plate, while Lewis drove in the game-winning run, then recorded the final out in relief of Mallari.

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