PORTLAND, Ore. – The West Coast League Championship Game is set, and it’s a matchup steeped in two decades of history: Tonight, the Corvallis Knights visit the Wenatchee AppleSox, with a WCL title at stake between the two most decorated organizations in league history.

Since the league’s founding in 2005, Corvallis and Wenatchee have combined to win 15 of the WCL’s 20 championships, a collective dominance that’s left just five titles for the rest of the league combined (for the record, those five have gone to four teams: Bellingham twice, along with Portland, Bend, and the now long-departed Moses Lake Pirates).

Wenatchee got there first, winning the championship in ’05 and five of the league’s first eight. Twice in that stretch, the AppleSox beat Corvallis for the title. But the Knights got theirs too, denying Wenatchee a championship in 2008, and besting the AppleSox again in 2013.

Corvallis has since taken over: the Knights have won 10 WCL titles overall, including seven straight from 2016 through 2023. In both 2024 and ’25, Corvallis fell short against the Portland Pickles in the South title match, but Tuesday night the Knights topped the Ridgefield Raptors on their way to yet another league championship round.

Meanwhile, the AppleSox are North champs for the second time in three years. Two years ago they fell just short against the Pickles for the league title, and this week they earned another shot by beating the Bellingham Bells 18-4 for a high-stakes date with the Knights.

AppleSox Head Coach Mitch Darlington has named Wenatchee mainstay Mitch Haythorn as his starting pitcher in the title game. Haythorn (Northern Colorado) was an All-Star last summer, and this summer he’s gone 4-1 with a 4.32 ERA in the regular season, racking up 46 strikeouts in just 33 innings. Last weekend in the divisional playoffs, he spun six scoreless frames against Kelowna in a 9-0 road victory.

Knights Head Coach Brooke Knight counters with Micah Hagler (Seattle U), who made his WCL debut on July 18 with three shutout relief innings against the powerful Walla Walla Sweets. Hagler finished the regular season with 11 strikeouts and just one walk in 11 innings.

Tonight’s game reunites the league’s two flagship programs on summer baseball’s biggest stage, with a fresh chapter to add to a rivalry that dates back to the WCL’s very beginnings.

HOW TO WATCH
First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 at Wenatchee’s Paul Thomas Sr. Field, on the Wenatchee Valley College campus. The game will be available live and free on WCL Live, the league’s streaming platform, and the WCL Live apps for Apple and Android.

About the West Coast League
The West Coast League is North America’s premier summer collegiate baseball league, now in its 21st season. Sixteen teams span the region from Oregon to Alberta, giving top amateur athletes a grand stage for competition, development, and connection with the communities they represent, in the finest summer baseball weather on the continent. In each of the last three seasons, a WCL alumnus has been selected in the top five of the MLB Draft, and 10 players have come off the board in the first 10 picks over the last decade.