After West Linn’s 8-4 win over Sunset in the 2024 OSAA 6A baseball championship on Saturday, Lions’ head coach Joe Monahan was being mobbed by family, friends, fans and reporters alike.
He was met with handshakes, hugs, high-fives, smiles, and even an old-school Gatorade bath.
At one point, as the infield at Volcanoes Stadium was finally thinning out and Monahan was wrapping up the last of his interviews, one of the West Linn head coach’s former players brushed by the scene.
“Best coach in Oregon history!” said Drake Gabel, who graduated from Monahan’s program in 2023 after winning two state championships himself.
The former Lion, now a part of the baseball team at Seattle University, knew what Monahan had done was special.
The championship victory on Saturday marked a third-consecutive for West Linn, the most-ever in Oregon’s top classification. To say Monahan is approaching legend status would be an understatement, and Gabel certainly agrees.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of this,” Monahan said. “I don’t really think about it too much, I’m just blessed to be able to coach this game.”
The Lions overcame some early adversity on their way to making history on Saturday, turning a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead in a matter of minutes during the first inning before holding on to win 8-4.
While Sunset opened the game with three-straight hits, taking a 3-0 advantage on a two-run homer by junior Dakota Chun, senior Gabe Howard followed-up with five perfect innings on the mound for West Linn.
As one of the Lions’ many quality arms, Howard had his fastball and slider working against the Apollos, turning away a total of 18-straight batters after Chun’s home run.
“You just gotta stay mellow out there,” Howard said. “You can’t create too much energy out there, you gotta stay calm. It really helps you create first-pitch strikes and it really benefits me.”
Meanwhile, the West Linn offense turned the game around almost immediately in the bottom of the first, as Howard led off with a single, senior Mitch Rowe was hit by a pitch, fellow senior Ryan VandenBrink was walked, and junior Danny Wideman cleared the bases with an arching line-drive over the shortened wall in left field.
“We’ve been here before and we know what it’s like,” Wideman said. “We play great teams, we’ve been down before, and there was a lot of ballgame left so we didn’t think too much about it.”
At a pivotal moment with the bases loaded and no one out in the championship game, Wideman delivered his first home run of the year, stealing the lead back from Sunset with a breath-taking grand slam.
Then, things got worse for the Apollos in the bottom of the second, as Lions junior Carson Boyer led off with a walk and Howard was hit by a pitch before VandenBrink provided a one-out, two-RBI triple that hit the fence in right-center.
From there, Wideman brought VandenBrink around with a single through the left side, then junior Baron Naone launched a double to center, scoring Wideman.
Suddenly, after trailing 3-0 in the top of the first, West Linn possessed an 8-3 lead it would never surrender.
“Our players — they expect to win and they believe in each other,” Monahan said. “I didn’t see one head go down and I didn’t see one concern go up. It was just, ‘Hey, let’s go get the bats going and get this back,’ and that’s what we did.”
Sunset’s Will Slater did well to contain the Lion’s’ blistering bats after stepping in during the bottom of the second, holding them scoreless over the last five innings.
But still, Howard’s rhythm was practically unbreakable on the bump.
The Apollos got one run back in the top of the seventh on a lead-off home run by Maddox Montoya, but Howard ultimately closed the game with a strikeout and a tag out where the Sunset batter bunted and made contact with the ball taking off toward first.
“We’ve had a lot of fights with this team and I believe in us every second,” Howard said. “We can come back and win any game, no matter what. In any circumstances, we’re in the fight.”
The senior went seven complete innings on Saturday, striking out seven batters while etching himself into the West Linn history books.
Meanwhile, Wideman led the way offensively with five RBI, four of which came via the first-inning grand slam, while VandenBrink tallied two RBI.
Slater struck out three batters while allowing just one hit for Sunset, while Chun, Montoya, and senior Max Ellerbrook recorded RBI for the Apollos.
Saturday’s victory marked 19-straight for the Lions, who matched the all-classification state-best mark of three-straight titles set by Drain High School (now known as North Douglas) from 1949-51.
By producing a level of success that hasn’t been seen in the state of Oregon for more than 70 years, it’s safe to say a baseball dynasty is currently running in West Linn.
“I’ve been in this community for 30 years-plus. This started when my oldest son was six-years-old in T-ball and I was just a youth coach,” Monahan said. “It’s all about building men and using the greatest game in the world to do it. That’s really all I care about.
“The fact that we won some championships is secondary to the kind of men we have in our community.”
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