Lebanon high school athletic teams headed into the postseason Friday, May 18, after the Warriors’ baseball and softball teams clinched play-in berths and five track and field athletes qualified for the state championships.
“It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks,” said Athletic Director Kraig Hoene.
The good news for Lebanon was that both the baseball and softball games will be at home.
The Warriors hosted Eagle Point Friday in a baseball play-in game.
Lebanon was fourth in the Mid-Willamette Conference on a tie-breaker after both it and Dallas finished with 9-9 records, 13-12 overall for the Warriors. No. 1-ranked Crescent Valley was league champion after going unbeaten in league play, 24-2 overall.
Lebanon has had success in recent playoffs, finishing fifth in league last year, then winning at Eagle Point and beating LaSalle before losing to Wilsonville in the 5A Division quarterfinals.
The Warriors hosted Churchill Friday in a softball play-in game.
Lebanon finished fourth in league with a 10-8 record, 11-14 overall. Dallas won the MWC title with a perfect 19-0 record, 26-1 overall, by playing suffocating defense – 47 runs allowed in 27 games, while scoring 292.
The match-up with Churchill, the No. 5 finisher in the Midwestern League (7-11, 7-18) brought back memories of their 2016 run through the state playoffs, in which they lost in the final to the Lancers.
The Warriors made another playoff run last year with a win over Eagle Point in the first round after beating Springfield in a playoff game, then lost a tight game to Dallas 3-2 in the quarterfinals.
In track the Warriors sent five individuals to the OSAA Championships in five events.
Defending state champion junior Morgan Hopkins won the district title in the shot put with a throw of 36-10½ – well below the personal best of 38-8½ that she posted at last year’s state meet – a personal best of nearly 2 feet at the time.
Senior Hannah Mason broke up a pack of Crescent Valley runners, who placed first, third and fourth, to take second in the 1500 and qualify for state with a time of 4:56.71.
“Crescent Valley has some stud runners,” Hoene said. “She made a heck of a run at the end.”
For the Warrior boys, junior Raymond Knuth made state in the 100 with a second-place finish in 11.31.
Senior Kyler Alley was second in the javelin with a throw of 150-3 and senior Tanner Acosta tied his personal best in the high jump with a leap of 6-1 to take second.
Neither the golf nor tennis teams had any state qualifiers, individual or team-wise, though Mary Workman won the district consolation title in tennis.