Corvallis’ bats wake up in time to earn series win over Spokane

By Aaron Yost
Gazette-Times reporter

Corvallis High product Billy Clontz belted a sun-blessed triple in the second inning on Thursday and the Corvallis Knights turned in an extra-base bonanza in front of 457 at Goss Stadium.

Clontz scored on Matt Wyckoff’s groundout and three pitchers combined on a two-hitter as the Knights collected a 6-0 victory over Spokane to win the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League game and series.

Corvallis (5-1) was coming off a disappointing 6-1 loss on Wednesday, in which it didn’t hit well.

Turning the tables on the RiverHawks (3-3) was uppermost for the Knights.

“This team is going to be one of the better teams in the league, so it was important to put a statement on the board and say that we’re going to be here, too,” Clontz said.

The Knights had three doubles and a homer in addition to Clontz’s three-bagger among their nine hits.

Clontz’s run was all the scoring through six and a half innings, a period that saw Corvallis starter Jared Eskew (1-0) strike out seven and allow one hit — a first-inning, two-out double - in 61/3 innings. It was Eskew’s first appearance for the Knights.

“He got here a couple days ago and Jared really performed,” Knights coach Brooke Knight said. “He stays around the zone and he misses well, which is great. It really shows he’s controlling his pitches.”

It was also Eskew’s first time on the mound in a game situation in several weeks. He just completed his junior year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

“I just got out of school a little while ago,” he said after his outing was cut off by a pitch count. “I’ve been throwing a lot of pitches throughout the year. I knew I was getting close.”

Chris Brookey and Jerad Thompson each threw 11/3 to finish off the two-hitter.

Brookey got some breathing space in the bottom of the seventh when Logan Lotti sent a Matt Renner fastball off the scoreboard in left-center, giving Corvallis a 2-0 lead.

“He started me off with a bunch of junk, a changeup that I chased and a lot of splitties,” Lotti said. “Then I got more acclimated to his fastball and trusted my hands. That one came up fat and I got good wood on it.”

Spokane went to reliever Kyle Lawton in the eighth and it was like throwing gasoline on the fire. Already struggling with an ERA of 9.00, Lawton gave up four hits, two walks and four runs in 2/3 of an inning.

“We got the bats going late, but even before that we had some better at-bats,” Knight said. “It’s all about having a plan and the guys getting up there did a much better job tonight.”

In particular, the Knights stepped to the plate looking for first-pitch fastballs. Often enough, they found one.

“They’ve been beating us and getting ahead in the count with first-pitch fastballs and that’s the best pitch to hit, so we just made sure we were aggressive and it paid off,” Clontz said.

Josh Hogan doubled to open the eighth, Dean Green walked, Kyle Stalker had an RBI double, Clontz an RBI single, Wyckoff hit a sacrifice fly to center and Doug Cherry drove in the final run with a two-out single, spelling the end of Lawton’s appearance.

The Knights pitchers combined for 12 strikeouts, three by Thompson as he earned his first save.

Corvallis starts a three-game series with the Kelowna Falcons at 7:35 p.m. tonight.

Corvallis 6, Spokane 0

SPOKANE 000 000 000 - 0 2 0

CORVALLIS 010 000 14x - 6 9 0

Proszek, Renner (7), Lawton (8), Hiatt (8) and VanWinkle. Eskew, Brookey (7), Thompson (8) and Bridges. WP: Eskew (1-0). LP: Proszek (0-1). Sv: Thompson (1). 2B: VanWinkle (S), Hogan (C), Stalker (C), Lotti (C). 3B: Clontz (C). HR: Lotti (C).

Hits: Spokane 2 (Headrick, VanWinkle). Corvallis 9 (Melker 2, Hogan, Stalker, Clontz 2, Lotti 2, Cherry).

RBIs: Spokane 0. Corvallis 6 (Stalker, Clontz, Wyckoff 2, Lotti, Cherry).