Medford Mustangs bow out of Legion AAA state tourney on Day 3

Published 1:34 pm Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Medford suffers consecutive losses for only second time this season in elimination loss to Area 4 foe Eugene Challengers

Clearly the talent was there, but the Medford Mustangs simply ran out of steam at the wrong time during this summer baseball season.

Medford suffered consecutive losses for only the second time this season at an unfortunate time, with the Mustangs being eliminated from contention at the American Legion AAA state tournament following a 15-3, six-inning loss to the Eugene Challengers Monday in Portland.

Jackson Rosenthal hit a one-out single in the bottom of the first to give rise that the Mustangs would be able to shake off Sunday’s tough 6-4 loss to the Portland Hillsdale Merchants, but it all seemed to slip away thereafter.

Eugene scored five times in the third off Medford starting pitcher Dominic Daffron, four more in the fourth and then really closed the door in the sixth with seven more runs to enact the 10-run mercy rule at Joe Etzel Field in Portland.

“It just didn’t go our way,” said second-year Mustangs manager John King, whose team was seeking a 19th state title and first since 2022. “We went up thinking that we had a pretty good shot. We didn’t play very good (Sunday), but I thought that we were ready for today. Jackson gets a home run to get the lead and Dom’s throwing well, and then we had a couple kind of endcap, off-the-handle stuff and it ended up imploding on us later in the game. But I’m super proud of the way the kids played this year.”

As luck of the draw would have it, all three of Monday’s contests — two in the elimination round and another in the championship bracket — pitted league foes against each other. Besides the Area 4 matchup between Medford (38-8) and Eugene (45-11), an Area 3 battle saw the Corvallis Marketmen eliminate the Stayton Canyon Crushers with a 7-2 win, and the tournament host Portland Barbers became the only unbeaten team at state with a 4-3 win over Area 2 rival Hillsdale.

“It’s kind of a shame the way the bracket fell that we ended up having to play each other,” King said of the matchup with the reigning state champion Challengers, who his team had posted a 3-1 record against this summer.

“Me and (Challengers manager Kenny Niles) talked about it this morning, because all of the teams playing today were from their own area,” added King. “It’s unfortunate because you’re going to end up bumping somebody out from your area. I just wish that we would’ve bumped someone out instead of being bumped.”
Daffron was tagged with 13 hits and 12 earned runs with two walks and one strikeout in 5 ⅓ innings. Jake Lewis earned the final two outs but not before allowing two hits and three unearned runs in the top of the sixth.

It was the first loss this summer for Daffron, who entered the tourney with a 6-0 record and 1.86 ERA.

As host to next summer’s American Legion AAA state tournament, as well as the 2026 and 2027 Pacific Northwest Regionals, Medford Mustangs manager John King said the team will have to devise a schedule plan that works best to challenge but also keep his team fresh for postseason play. (Kris Henry / Rogue Valley Times)

“He’s good at not finding barrels but making contact — that’s what keeps his pitch-count down — we just had some unfortunate plays that happened,” said King. “We had a little looper over second base that ended up falling, and you’re in a tight ballgame and you bring the infield in and they get a hit to where if you’re back, it’s an out. That’s always a chance that you take in that situation.”

“It obviously wasn’t one of his best outings,” added the manager, “but I didn’t think his outing was bad. As you would say, the baseball gods just didn’t have it in for us today.”

It didn’t help the cause that Medford was limited to four hits overall by Eugene starter Jayden Lucas, who didn’t record a strikeout. Rosenthal finished 2-for-3 with one run and two RBIs, while Easton Curtis was 1-for-2 with one run scored and Tristan Mallari had one hit.

“We only had four hits, so it’s going to be hard to win a game in the tournament when you get into the third day,” said King. “We squared up some balls and hit them right at people. It’s the way it fell, I guess, this year.”

“It’s disappointing,” he added. “I’ve spent eight weeks with these guys almost every day so it’s always hard when it’s over. Then there’s the disappointment for them because we all believe that we have a pretty good team, but it just didn’t work out for us.”

The good news for the Mustangs — beyond another exciting season that saw them win the Area 4 title and serve as one of the top teams in the state — is that they have already been awarded tournament hosting rights to the 2026 American Legion AAA state tournament, as well as the 2026 and 2027 Pacific Northwest Regionals. All games will be played at Harry & David Field in a selection that came prior to this summer season even starting.

As such, Medford is secured of a spot in each of those tournaments — with an especially important leg up in hopefully reaching the American Legion World Series. The Mustangs have won five regional titles in their history — the last coming in 2015 — and were national runner-up/semifinalists in 1997, 2009 and 2015.

“Hopefully we keep building a little bit,” said King. “Like I told the kids afterwards, we’re literally five games from the World Series starting right now.”

Early automatic entry for the state and regional tourneys may also necessitate a change in the way the Mustangs approach the coming season schedule. After few teams could counter Medford through the first six weeks of the summer, the group appeared to run out of steam in the final two weeks of this season.

“That’s something we’ll have to look at when we’re doing the schedule next year,” said King. “We don’t need to have a really, really hard schedule with hosting state and hosting regionals, but also we need to have a challenging schedule. It’s one of those things that we have to sit down as coaches and as an organization on what we want to do with the schedule and if we want to play 45 games or if we want to play 32-33 games.”

“One of the things with being a Medford Mustang and what college coaches look at,” he added, “is they know that if you’re getting them, the kids are going to know how to grind because of the schedule that we put in during the summer. That’s something else that we need to look at, too.”

Reach sports editor Kris Henry at kris.henry@rv-times.com or 458-488-2035