Panthers upset three-time reigning champion Lions in second round of the Class 6A baseball state playoffs

The South Medford baseball team never stopped battling.

The Panthers never stopped grinding.

And they never stopped believing.

In the end, South Medford accomplished the impossible, upsetting three-time defending Class 6A state champion West Linn 4-1 in the second round of the playoffs at West Linn High School on Thursday.

“We were all ready to drive back up here and beat them at their own place,” said South Medford senior pitcher Tristan Mallari, who threw 6.2 innings and allowed just one run on two hits and four walks while striking out six. “We wanted to ruin their state championship opportunities and we did. It was perfect.”

“We were coming into it, just knowing that anything could happen,” said Panther senior first baseman Evan Rhoden, who went 1-for-4 at the plate and led off the decisive seventh inning with a single. “We wanted to peak at the end of season, and this is exactly what’s happened. It’s exactly what you’re seeing.”

“Evan leading (the seventh inning) off with a hit, that was very key,” added South Medford junior left fielder/pitcher Jake Lewis, who knocked in the game-winning run with a sacrifice fly, then recorded the final out in relief of Mallari. “(After that), it was just hits, hits in a row, and hits are contagious.”

With the win, the No. 18 Panthers’ second straight in the playoffs, South Medford improved to 17-11 overall after finishing tied for third in the Southwest Conference. Next up, the Panthers will play No. 7 McMinnville in the 6A quarterfinals at 5 p.m. Friday at Patton Middle School.

The Grizzlies (22-7 overall after winning the Pacific Conference) earned their berth in the quarterfinal by beating No. 10 Tualatin, 8-4, on Wednesday.

The Panthers’ win at West Linn was, for the longest time, a pitching duel between Mallari and West Linn senior Cole Hawkins (he threw 6.2 innings and allowed four runs – none earned – on four hits and two walks while striking out four), with Mallari allowing just one hit in the first five innings, while Hawkins gave up just one hit in South’s first six at-bats.

But West Linn junior Caden 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.

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.

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

“I was just like, ‘Anything out of the infield deep enough scores a run,’ and that was just my approach,” Lewis said. “I put it in right field, but I didn’t care that I got it. I was just like, ‘Right let’s go.’”

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.

“I was hyped up. I was ready to go back out there and get those last three outs,” Mallari said. “I didn’t get them all because of the pitch count, but my buddy Jake got it for me.”

For a photo slideshow from the game, go to westlinntidings.com/2025/05/29/slideshow-west-linn-south-medford-baseball/