KEIZER – Gianni Lombardi wanted the ball.
After last year, when the senior righthander gave up 11 earned runs in the state final to Pendleton / Nixyaawii in a 14-3 loss, Lombardi wanted redemption, and to lead Marist Catholic (25-4) to its first-ever state baseball title.
He got both, as the third-seeded Spartans scored four runs through the first three innings. That proved just enough to get by scrappy Tillamook, the No. 12 seed, 4-3, at the OSAA / OnPoint Community Credit Union 4A Baseball State Championship Saturday evening at Roto-Rooter Park in Keizer.
Five days earlier, Lombardi had thrown a complete game in Marist’s semifinal win over second-seeded Scappoose. He was tired. Head coach Noah Breslaw wasn’t sure whether he wanted Lombardi starting the game or available in relief. The coach left the decision to his hard-throwing standout senior.
“He said, ‘Do you want the ball?” Lombardi recalled. “I said, ‘Yes!’ “After last year there’s nothing I wanted more than to come back and win one.”
“He wanted the ball,” said Breslaw. “You put the ball in your playmaker’s hands.”
Lombardi threw 5.2 innings of three-hit ball, with eight strikeouts. He used a three-pitch mix: fastball, curve and changeup. All his pitches were working. He threw 69 strikes. When he missed, he missed away.
Lombardi left in the sixth inning, after reaching the 110-pitch limit, with a 4-0 lead.
That’s when things got really interesting…
***
Tillamook (18-11) is a team that had been tested all year. The Mooks were tested emotionally in the first few weeks of the season when their head coach stepped down after the team’s slow start. They were tested in the Cowapa League, where they finished second but lost five times. And they were tested in their state playoff run, where they came through with tight wins over Hidden Valley and top-seeded Henley, the latter in nine innings, to secure a berth in the state final for the first time in school history.
“We battled,” said head coach Travis Moncrief. “It’s how we did it down the stretch both in league and the playoffs. Every game was a battle. This one was no different. This one was epic.”
***
The 2026 season was about validation and redemption for Marist Catholic. The Spartans made the title game – their first in 40 years – in 2024 and lost a one-run game to powerhouse Scappoose. The following season, Marist Catholic was favored to win state but instead was dominated by Pendleton / Nixyaawii in a game that went only five innings.
On Saturday, the Spartans had yet another chance to reach the mountaintop.
And, finally, mission accomplished.
Breslaw said that the win does not erase the memories of the past two years, for himself or his seniors, but added: “This makes it worth it because there was a lot of heartache with the last two. There’s no way to get this close without feeling it.”
“It feels awesome,” Lombardi said. “I can’t explain the excitement I have after losing the first two. It’s all I’ve ever dreamt of.”
***
Marist Catholic got off to a fast start versus Tillamook, just as it did in its semifinal win over Scappoose, scoring three runs in the opening frame.
After Lombardi got two strikeouts in the top of the first to work around a one-out walk to Aden Garcia, the Spartans struck for three in the bottom of the frame off of Tillamook junior Kevin Hurliman, a hard-throwing righthander. Stephen Riley drew a leadoff walk and stole second. Grady Hazen then walked and Lombardi followed with a seeing-eye single up the middle to drive in Riley with the game’s first run.
One out later, Marist thought it would add another run, when Alec Malpass, a scorching hitter throughout the playoffs, laced a sharp single to left center. Garcia, however, had other ideas and threw a dart home to cut down Hazen trying to score.
That brought up junior DH Jalen Smith, who was 2-for-2 in the 2025 final. Smith came through again, finding a pitch to his liking and slamming it way over Garcia’s head in center for a two-run triple.
Smith set the scene.
“We just had a guy pegged out at home,” he said. “I’m looking fastball and I got all of it. My eyes definitely opened wide. I ended up on third, the boys scored, vibes were high and I was so happy!”
Both teams failed to score in the second, although Marist Catholic had two on with no outs; but the Spartans broke through with a single run in the bottom of the third against reliever Wrigley Percy. The run scored with two outs when Colt Mann, who had reached on a fielder’s choice; stole second with Malpass on third. Percy’s throw to second to get Mann was errant, allowing Malpass to scamper home.
Down 4-0, Tillamook started to exert pressure on Lombardi. The Cheesemakers got back-to-back singles to open the top of the fourth – their first two hits of the game – and had runners on second and third with no outs, but could not score. Hazen, Marist’s catcher, made a great play to nab a foul pop up for the first out. Lombardi then froze Chance Fletcher with a 3-2 hook and induced Josh Manns to line out hard to center to escape.
In the top of the fifth, Tillamook again mounted a threat, this time with two outs, when an error and Garcia’s single put runners on second on third. This time, Lombardi induced weak contact from Tyler Larson on a great curveball that produced a pop up to short.
Marist Catholic had a lot of traffic itself on the basepaths during the middle stages of the game but, like Tillamook, could not add on.
“It’s never easy,” Breslaw said. “There’s no bad team that makes it to a state championship. We got runners on a lot, but their pitcher was good. We never got that extra hit that was going to be the one to bring in runs.”
The teams went to the top of the sixth with Marist Catholic leading 4-0 and Lombardi approaching the 110-pitch limit. Hurliman drew a leadoff walk. Lombardi retired the next two batters he faced but walked Manns to reach 111 pitches and had to come out. Marist’s relief pitcher hit a batter with the first pitch he threw, then walked pinch hitter Sam Gomes to force in Tillamook’s first run. Tristan Smith-Evans followed with an infield single to score a second run. A four-pitch walk to Garcia brought home Tillamook’s third run, as Cheesemaker fans went wild.
Marist Catholic made another pitching change, this time bringing on lefthander Brock Cranmer to face the left-handed hitting Larson. He needed just one pitch to get out of the inning, as Larson attempted a surprise bunt that went right back to the pitcher.
Marist could not answer Tillamook’s rally with runs of its own, despite getting two on with one out. Percy just battled and was able to keep the Mooks in the game.
Marist ran onto the field for the top of the seventh intent on protecting a one-run lead.
Hurliman promptly greeted Cranmer with a sharp single to center leading off the inning. Percy and Fletcher came up next. Hoping to do damage. Each hit the ball hard to left. Each ball settled in the glove of Spartan leftfielder Mann. Marist Catholic was one out away from that elusive title.
The last out did not come easily. Manns reached on a two-strike infield single to put the tying run in scoring position. Cranmer went to work again and got the count to 1-2 on Vincent Maciel. The next pitch froze Tillamook’s junior catcher. The pitch could have been called a ball but was too close to take. The umpire called strike three. The game, and Marist’s three-year wait to be recognized as champion, was over.
As Tillamook was rallying in the sixth and threatening in the seventh, Smith, in the dugout as the DH, was going over all of the possible scenarios.
“I was thinking about all the worst possible situations and all the good possible situations,” he admitted. “But also I trust my guys. Brock goes in and he shoves. He gets two strikes on the last guy and I knew he was going to finish it. It was a feeling like I’ve never had before.”
“The one thing this team has is the moment never gets too big for them all year,” Breslaw added.
“We played Marist baseball today and deserved to win, for ourselves and for the seniors who couldn’t get it done the last two years,” Smith said.
For Tillamook, which came so close in its first appearance in a state championship game, Moncrief had this message: “You can be disappointed but if you did everything you could do there is no regret.”
“They’re a good baseball team,” Moncrief added. “They’re not going to give you any freebies. We didn’t have some timely hits, but we were in every inning. One more hit drops or something it could be a different game.”
Moncrief also lamented that senior Jakoby Goss, his big hitter, was unavailable for the game.
“Where Goss would have been we have second and third twice and bases loaded once for our .500 hitter,” he explained. “It’s a tough deal but I couldn’t be more proud of our kids.”
Moncrief concluded that he hoped to be back coaching Tillamook in 2027.
“I don’t know how I can walk away,” he said. “We have a lot of juniors coming back. You’ve got to come try again I think.”
johnt@osaa.org
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