‘The best feeling in the world.’ 11th-seeded Crescent Valley makes history with magical run to 5A Oregon baseball championship

By René Ferrán | Photos by Taylor Balkom 

KEIZER — One month ago, the Crescent Valley baseball team stood 10-9, having lost four consecutive games in Mid-Willamette Conference play and floundering in the standings. 

On Saturday morning, after the Raiders dodged the raindrops at soggy Volcanoes Stadium in Keizer to defeat MWC rival and top-seeded Lebanon 6-0 in the Class 5A state championship game, senior Noah Dewey looked back at the season’s nadir and how far the team had come.

“We were in the bottom part of our season, where we were on a roll of losing,” said Dewey, who allowed two hits in 6⅓ innings before hitting his pitch limit. “But after the Silverton series, we kind of turned things around. We swept them and just kept going, our confidence building, and we got on a hot streak.”

First baseman Garrett Bozdeck, whose two-run double in the seventh inning broke the game open, recalled coming as an eighth-grader to the 2018 state final, when Crescent Valley lost 2-0 to Crater, and thinking, “That’s going to be us one day.”

Even while the team scuffled through the middle portion of the season, Bozdeck didn’t lose hope.

“We have such a huge senior team, and we were like, ‘This is our last shot to play with these guys, so let’s make a run for it,’” he said. “Silverton is a good team, and when we played really well against them, we thought, ‘If we can beat them by a lot, we can beat any team.’” 

During that four-game skid, Dewey got rocked by Lebanon for five runs in the first inning of an eventual 11-4 defeat.

For Saturday’s rematch, he had only one thing in mind.

“I’m going to strike out every single player,” said the Linn-Benton commit, who struck out nine and walked two. “I didn’t care about giving up any hits. All I was thinking is I’m gonna get you out.”

Lebanon coach Jeff Stolsig could only tip his cap to Dewey’s performance.

“We beat him earlier in the year, but he was a different pitcher today,” Stolsig said. “He had his slider working, and I’d say his strike percentage was about 65, 70 percent (final total: 72 of 111, 64.9%). So, I just give credit to Noah.”

When Dewey departed the mound following a one-out walk to Henry Pointer in the seventh, he received hugs from Landen Parker, Bozdeck and finally coach Scot McDonald. Dewey moved to shortstop and Parker finished the three-hit shutout for the program’s first state title.

“It means everything,” Dewey said. “All these guys, we’ve been playing together since middle school, so it’s just the best feeling in the world to win it all.”

Both teams looked to make history in Saturday’s final — the only one played as the OSAA moved the 4A and 6A finals to Tuesday in anticipation of inclement weather the rest of the weekend.

Neither school had won a state championship in baseball. Crescent Valley (20-10) became the lowest seed (No. 11) to win the Class 5A title since the OSAA began seeding the bracket in 2011 and the first team to earn a championship with double-digit losses since Oregon City in 2012.

Lebanon (23-5) hadn’t gotten past the quarterfinals before this spring’s run, coming to Volcanoes Stadium riding a 10-game win streak and having won 22 of its past 23 games.

“I’m super proud of these guys,” said Stolsig, whose son, J.J., will coach Canby in Tuesday’s 6A final. “They’ve done a super job all year long of competing. But what I love most is that, yes, they’ve had a great season, one of the better ones, but they’re not satisfied with that. They expect more of themselves, and they’re going to come back strong.”

The Raiders scratched out an unearned run in the second inning, then scored twice in the third on RBI singles by Dewey and Bozdeck.

Dewey held the Warriors hitless until two outs in the fourth, when Matt Woodward was credited with a single after his sharp grounder hit teammate Caleb Rickman in the foot.

Lebanon again got two runners on base in the fifth, but Dewey won an 11-pitch battle with shortstop Colton Vandetta with a called third strike, then induced a flyout to right to end the threat.

“We’ve been behind in games this year, and we always seemed to rally,” Stolsig said. “Today, we just didn’t get the breaks that we needed. They did a good job of keeping us down.”