‘For all the alumni that have come before us.’ Lions past and present celebrate as West Linn dominates en route to 1st baseball crown since 1982
By René Ferrán | Photos by Leon Neuschwander
KEIZER — A few days before the start of the OSAA Class 6A baseball playoffs, West Linn coach Joe Monahan brought his team to Volcanoes Stadium.
He sat his players in the third-base dugout and had them visualize what it would be like playing in a state championship game.
“He wanted to bring us out here to make us know that we can do this, that it’s possible,” junior Maxwell Wright said. “So, you gotta listen to Coach!”
It took three additional days for that vision to come to life, but Tuesday night, the Lions took the field in Keizer and ended the program’s 40-year title drought, drubbing Canby 14-0 in five innings.
“We had a good talk with Coach, and I think that’s where we just flipped the switch for the playoffs,” said junior right-hander Drew Talavs, who tossed a two-hit shutout, striking out 10. “It was super fun celebrating with the team. I can’t wait for the bus ride home. Just get home and be with my friends.”
West Linn (25-7) brought an emphatic end to Canby’s Cinderella run to its first championship game since 1960. The Lions scored five runs in the first inning, tacked on three more in the third and sealed the victory with six in the fourth.
Wright, whose two-run double highlighted the first inning, said the Lions wanted to seize control from the onset.
“That was the mindset always,” said the third baseman, who drove in three runs and scored three times. “That’s how we were against Lakeridge (in the semifinals), and we came out tonight with it, too. The confidence was there.”
In doing so, the Lions did what their counterparts in 1995, 2005, 2015 and 2017 could not — win the final game and bring home the school’s first state baseball championship since 1982 and third all-time.
“I think we had something special going on from last summer,” Talavs said. “We always just felt a good connection with this team and that we could just get it done.”
West Linn has been a perennial power since that 2015 run to the final, and this year’s group already had a championship pedigree.
In 2017, first baseman Jake Holmes made the Cal Ripken World Series all-tournament team for a West Linn squad that finished fifth. The same group qualified for Babe Ruth World Series in 2018 and 2019, advancing to the championship bracket at the 14U tournament with catcher Ryan Vandenbrink making the all-tournament team.
Both played a part in the Lions’ victory Tuesday. Holmes drove in two runs, and Vandenbrink went 1 for 3 and called a stellar game behind the plate.
“I mean, growing up with these guys, our class, we’ve been to three World Series, won the state championship this year,” Holmes said. “So, this is the expectation for our group, and I really think we have a good shot to come back next year.”
The 14th-seeded Cougars (19-13) vied to become the lowest-seeded team to win a state title since Oregon City in 2012, when the OSAA introduced seeding and the Pioneers were a sixth seed in their eight-team portion of the bracket (the OSAA seeded each quarter of the draw separately).
They’d gone on the road and knocked off No. 3 seed South Medford, No. 6 Mountainside and No. 7 Clackamas en route to the final, but they couldn’t hold off a potent Lions attack that racked up 12 hits against two Canby pitchers.
“So much credit to that group over there,” Holmes said, looking at the Canby players huddled around coach JJ Stolsig down the right-field line. “They play well together, and they’re a good ball team. They chipped away and did what they had to do to get here.
“But you know, after beating Lakeridge, we just came together, and that just boosted our confidence. We knew that we really could come out here and get this done, and that’s what we did from the jump.”
Stolsig is the son of Lebanon coach Jeff Stolsig, who led his team to Saturday's 5A state final. Both were hoping to bring home their school’s first baseball championship, and Canby brought a big crowd that filled the first-base side of the stadium.
“These guys really care about each other,” JJ Stolsig said. “That’s what allowed us to go on this run. The trajectory of this program, from their freshman year to now, there’s a lot of good moments these guys had, and they really battled.”
The teams met in a Three Rivers League series in mid-April, with the Lions taking two of three games. Talavs won the opener of that series 3-0, and the Oregon State commit looked just as comfortable on the biggest stage of his career.
“Just popping the zone and don’t focus on just striking everyone out,” Talavs said of his approach. “Just throw strikes and let them hit it.”
The Lions scored three runs in the third after opening the inning with consecutive outs. Wright started the rally by getting hit by a pitch before scoring on Holmes’ single, and Barret Brundage launched a two-run triple to the right-field corner to chase Cougars starter Joe Brauckmiller.
West Linn exploded for six runs in the fourth, again scoring all the runs with two outs by taking advantage of a dropped fly ball in left.
All that was left to do was for Talavs to retire the Cougars in order in the top of the fifth to trigger the 10-run mercy rule. The last time a 6A final was shortened by the rule? It was 1982, when the Lions won their previous title, 10-0 over Newberg.
Since then, West Linn had reached the final four times, with Monahan involved in three of those appearances — as an assistant on the 2005 team that lost to Sprague before leading the Lions to the 2015 and 2017 championship games. He said this victory “is for all the alumni that have come before us and didn’t get this done in the last 40 years.
“We’ve been here three times in the last seven games, and the first few times didn’t go our way,” he continued. “We had a lot of people rooting for us and a lot of prayers coming our way for this game. I’m just really proud of all of them. They’ve extended my coaching career just because I love being around them. They’re such a great group of young men.”
