![\"After](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4393.jpg\" "\\"\\"\/")
<\/p>\nThree-time defending 6A champs ousted in second round after giving up four runs in the top of the seventh<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After two long road trips and two stunning rallies, South Medford will take on McMinnville in the 6A quarterfinals tomorrow<\/p>\n
Second-seeded West Linn\u2019s historic, unprecedented run is over. <\/p>\n
After winning three successive large-class state titles between 2022 and 2024 \u2013 something that had never before been accomplished in state history \u2013 the Lions (23-6) fell at home on Thursday to 18th-seeded South Medford (17-11), 4-1, in the second round of the 6A playoffs in the OSAA \/ \u00a0OnPoint Community Credit Union State Baseball Championships.<\/p>\n
The game had been delayed a day to accommodate South Medford\u2019s high school graduation ceremony on Wednesday. Seven Panther seniors have now created everlasting memories on back-to-back days.<\/p>\n
South Medford needed a second straight playoff rally, and two six-hour drives north in four days, to advance to tomorrow\u2019s quarterfinal versus McMinnville. On Monday, the Panthers trailed Portland\u2019s Ida B. Wells, 2-0, before pushing over three runs in the top of the seventh to win, 3-2.<\/p>\n
Thursday, at West Linn, the host Lions took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth, on a double, productive ground ball out and sacrifice fly. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe could easily have folded,\u201d said South Medford head coach Josh Moody. \u201cBut they have bought into the \u2018next pitch\u2019 mentality. On the way back to the dugout, my guys said we had to score to win anyways. They stayed focused and we ended up on the right side of things today.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Medford\u2019s four-run seventh started with an infield single from senior 1B Evan Rhoden. One out later, senior Grady McQuillan hit a ball that got through the 6-hole to put runners on first and second. The next Panther batter hit a tailor-made double play grounder, but West Linn could not even get one out. A walk to Brad Love ensued, scoring the game-tying run. A Jake Lewis sacrifice fly put South Medford on top. The third and fourth runs scored on a throwing error and single from Easton Douglas, respectively.<\/p>\n
Four unearned runs sent West Linn to the bottom of the seventh now fighting for its playoff life. <\/p>\n
Tristan Mollari and Lewis made sure not to give the Lions any hope. <\/p>\n
Mollari got the first two outs of the frame \u2013 he pitched 6.2 inning of two-hit ball before running up against the pitch limit \u2013 and Lewis notched the team\u2019s seventh strike out of the game to end it.<\/p>\n
What might have been a 1-0 West Linn escape instead was a 4-1 South Medford upset that had the Panthers scrambling to make accommodations in the area in advance of tomorrow\u2019s trip to McMinnville.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really proud of this team,\u201d said West Linn head coach Joe Monahan, who took over the Lion program in 2014. \u201cThey were really young and inexperienced overall and we played the toughest schedule. If you told me we\u2019d be 22-5 at the end of the regular season, I\u2019d say, \u2018You\u2019re crazy.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cThis team overachieved in a lot of ways, but we struggled in the infield all season. \u00a0We escaped a lot of those catastrophes along the way and, in the end it bit us. It\u2019s a great young team with a bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to reflect on the end of West Linn\u2019s unprecedented streak, Monahan was philosophical.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery season is a new season that stands on its own,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe goal always is to compete for league and state titles. Anything short of that keeps us hungry. We won three state titles and remained hungry. That was most impressive about the group we had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-time defending 6A champs ousted in second round after giving up four runs in the top of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[16553,5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,16551,16552,17723,17724],"class_list":{"0":"post-65433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-6a","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","11":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-mlb-playoffs","14":"tag-mlb-postseason","15":"tag-osaa","16":"tag-osaatoday","17":"tag-south-medford","18":"tag-west-linn"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114594966706239040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}