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We dish out some awards before heading out for summer.
Six months ago, I asked if it was all worth it.
The Oregon Ducks had just been embarrassed in the Rose Bowl in a game so uncompetitive, I admit, it was a little tough to see the forest for the trees in the immediate aftermath of a perfect season that came to such a crashing halt.
I worry that Oregon football has morphed into a program that’s allowed to enjoy the season only if it’s the last team standing. And at college football’s greatest venue, the Ducks showed on Wednesday they’re still far away from being the last team at the dance.
I wrote that ending on the shuttle from the Rose Bowl back to the media hotel, and when I finished I remember thinking that the loss would overshadow a lot of the good that came in 2024. So what if the Ducks went 12-0 in the regular season? Who cares if they won the Big Ten title when it’s their biggest, baddest new rival who took a 34-8 lead into halftime in the most important game of the year?
Recency bias had me.
Time has since gone by and, as it does, my stance has softened.
When I think about 2024, I still remember the way it ended. I also remember the uneasiness around the way it started with close games against Idaho and Boise State.
But I also remember the way the Ducks played in between. I remember Jordan James trucking through Michigan State’s linebackers, Matayo Uiagalelei clinching the comeback with a pick in Madison, the Ducks watching the fans leave the Big House and picking up confetti for subscribers after the Ducks beat Penn State in Indy.
Mainly, I remember Dan Lanning being swallowed by the crowd on Oct. 12. The Ducks had beaten Ohio State, they were on their way to being No. 1 and Autzen Stadium had exploded into a jubilation that will rank as one of the best parties in this state’s sporting history. 50,000 people rushed the field and 100,000 more will say they did as Oregon’s players and coaches were swarmed by fans, writers, photographers, the Duck, Batman and a host of crowd surfers.
In a season where Lanning otherwise said the Ducks would celebrate when the job was done, Oregon’s third-year coach wore a silver chain with a large metallic O around his neck, gave out bear hugs and pointed to the sky from the middle of the mob after the biggest win of his career.
I’ll never forget that.
And for that one-of-a-kind moment alone, the Oregon football team is one of The I-5 Corridor’s 10 teams of the 2024-25 academic calendar. Here are the rest of our 2024-25 Oregon standouts: including Oregon State baseball, Southern Oregon softball and Lewis and Clark ultimate frisbee.
Oregon State Baseball
It wasn’t long after Oregon State finally ran out of comebacks that manager Mitch Canham was asked to look at the big picture. In a year unlike any other for Oregon State’s proudest program, what would he remember the most about a season that ended in the College World Series for the first time since 2018?
“I’m proud of how we came together, especially with starting off knowing that it’s an independent schedule and having to fight a battle that no one’s ever fought before,” Canham said. “Everyone kind of just faced it head-on and we all kind of came together that way. And it created a really tight group. That’s what I take away most from this year.”
The Beavers played the 2025 season as the only independent in Division 1 baseball. They went 48-16-1, came into the NCAA postseason ranked as the No. 8 team in the country and showed off that Corvallis grit with a bevy of elimination game wins throughout the regional, super regional and CWS rounds.
In a year when most Beaver programs took a step back amidst conference realignment fallout, Oregon State’s diamond shone brightly as ever.
“They got real heart,” Canham said. “They’re men. I believe they’ve found that out about themselves this year. It’s a huge part of why you go to college, to go out and compete and to grow and to become a man. I think each and every one of those guys in the clubhouse has become stronger. They took on so much.”
Tualatin Girls Basketball
This wasn’t exactly David versus Goliath. Sure, Clackamas came into the Oregon 6A girls state championship with a handfull D-I commits on its roster — including four-time state player of the year Jazzy Davidson — and yes, Tualatin was a team with a lone senior and a bevy of underclassmen, but the Timberwolves still arrived at the title game at the Chiles Center with a 25-2 record and the tournament’s No. 3 seed.
Still, not many expected the Timberwolves to best the Cavaliers 63-58. And nobody expected it when Tualatin found itself down 19 points with under three minutes to play in the third quarter. But a Davidson ankle injury, coupled with Tualatin’s never-say-die mentality, turned into a 28-4 run that ended with the Timberwolves cutting down the nets.
Said freshman Love Lei Best to OSAA Today after scoring a game-high 26 points in the comeback win: “It was just all positive things. We know how good we are as a team, and we know if we just keep encouraging each other, what we can do. We just kept chipping away and never let the 19 points bring us down.”
Oregon Women’s Golf
I’m sure there was some disappointment for Derek Radley in the end.
No. 2 Oregon’s 3-2 loss to No. 3 Northwestern in the women’s golf national championships semifinal marked the third time in the last four years that Oregon’s season had ended just short of winning the title. It had to be frustrating knowing that, when at its best, this was an Oregon team that could outshoot anyone in the nation — like it did back in Palm Desert in March when it won the Alice & John Wallace Classic by 23 strokes.
Still, with a starting five comprised entirely of underclassmen, Radley is also the type of coach to understand the accomplishment while knowing the program he’s built has a good chance of taking another swing.
“I’m so incredibly proud of this team,” Radley said. “They fought this entire week and left absolutely everything they had out there on that golf course. This is such a special group and the things they’ve been able to accomplish this season are truly amazing. They played for each other every step of the way and have nothing to hang their heads about. It’s an honor to be their coach.”
Southern Oregon Softball
It wasn’t Southern Oregon’s first banner, but good luck finding one that took more effort to hang.
After a tournament-opening loss to Marian (Ind.) in the NAIA Softball World Series, Jessica Pistole’s team rattled off seven consecutive wins while facing elimination to claim the program’s fourth national title since Pistole took over in 2015.
“Just the love on this team is apparent, and these players were ready to get in there and do it for the person next to them,” Pistole told reporters. “I feel like it was a different person every day that had a clutch hit.”
The Raiders claimed the championship with a pair of wins over Oklahoma City that saw freshman pitcher Ayla Davies finish the tournament with a record 71 strikeouts across eight complete games.
“I’m feeling so grateful for the chance to be here with my team,” Davies said, “and, honestly, I’m grateful we got to play every single game possible to get here.”
Davies was named the tournament’s MVP and was later the NAIA freshman and pitcher of the year after going 38-5 with a 1.20 ERA. Pistole picked up NAIA Coach of the Year honors for the fourth time in her career after the Raiders finished with a 55-9 record.
Lewis & Clark Ultimate Frisbee
Turns out, we’re pretty good with the ol’ frisbee in this state.
And I’m not just talking about in the woods with a few beers and a Bluetooth speaker.
Oregon is home to a pair of professional Ultimate Frisbee teams in the Oregon Soar and the Oregon Steel, and now our state also harbors the Division III national champions over at Lewis & Clark.
The Bacchus, as the team is called, defeated Middlebury 15-14 last month to claim the program’s first USA Ultimate D-III College Championship.
“It felt unreal,” senior Leo Farley told the school’s website. “Truthfully, throughout the season, I faced constant doubt about what my team and I would be able to do this season. We worked so hard, and I never really thought that my hard work and my teammates’ hard work could lead to such an accomplishment. I felt both immense joy and sadness. This nationals win marked the end of my college experience and my time with a team I love so dearly.”
Oregon softball
There was a time not so long ago when the sight of Mike White winning the Women’s College World Series with Texas would strike a knife through the heart of Oregon fans. White was a fan favorite in Eugene for leading the softball program to five WCWS appearances and his sudden departure to Texas back in 2018 wasn’t met with raving fanfare. The longing for what once was compounded as White led the Longhorns to WCWS appearances in 2022 and 2024 while the Ducks were still trying to find their way back with Melyssa Lombardi.
White and Texas winning it all in 2025 would have been gutting had it not been for the fire Lombardi’s Ducks showed this season. Oregon’s 54 wins were its third-most in school history, its Big Ten regular season crown was its first conference title since 2018 and its trip to Oklahoma City for the WCWS was its first since Lombardi took over for White in 2019.
And while Oregon fell just short of claiming its first national championship, Lombardi has the Ducks back in the hunt and Jane Sanders Stadium rocking.
Wilsonville football
There are a handful of teams that could have been chosen here across Oregon’s seven high school football classifications, but we’re going to highlight state 5A champion Wilsonville on The Corridor because we’re still in awe of the performance Mark Wiepert put together in the title game.
In beating Mountain View 56-35, the senior quarterback put up eight total touchdowns.
He rushed for 169 yards and five touchdowns.
He passed for 271 yards and three touchdowns to finish as the seventh player in Oregon 11-man history to toss 50 touchdowns in a season.
And for the fun of it, Wiepert tallied six tackles on defense at safety and returned a punt 37 yards.
“I wish every coach had the opportunity to coach someone like Mark, and not just for his athletic ability,” Wilsonville coach Adam Guenther told The Oregonian. “This kid can do whatever he wants to out there, put a cape on him with an ‘S’ on it and there you go.”
Wilsonville’s 56 points set the 5A record for the championship game as the Wildcats finished the season with an 11-2 record.
Sunset baseball
Yes, Sunset baseball won its first Oregon state title since 1994 earlier this month.
But that’s only part of the reason the Apollos make the list.
The other is Kruz Schoolcraft.
For one, Kruz Schoolcraft is a certifiably great baseball name.
For two, Kruz Schoolcraft is a certifiably great baseball player.
The towering 6-foot-8 senior was named the Oregon Baseball Gatorade Player of the Year for the second straight year after he recorded a 0.53 ERA with 82 strikeouts in 40 innings on the mound while hitting .521 with 10 home runs and 30 RBI at the plate. His bat and arm helped power Sunset to the state championship game, where the Apollos knocked off Grant 6-5 to avenge a 8-4 state championship loss to West Linn the year before.
Schoolcraft, who is committed to Tennessee, is ranked by Baseball America as the No. 4 prospect in his class and is expected to be a top-10 pick in next month’s MLB Draft.
“It’s a little better than I thought it would be,” Schoolcraft told the Portland Tribune. “We worked hard for this. After not winning last year, it set a fire in our hearts.”
Oregon State Women’s Basketball
We close with the only team on this list that was certifiably not great.
The Beavers were 19-16 in 2024-25 and largely played below the standard Scott Rueck’s squad had set the year before when Oregon State reached the Elite Eight.
But here’s the thing: The Beavers should have been bad.
After realignment chaos, OSU lost eight players from its Elite Eight roster to the transfer portal. And while the Beavers certainly had their ups and downs in their first season playing in the WCC, Oregon State was far from bad. By the time OSU made a run through the WCC Tournament and upset No. 2-seed Portland in the championship game to improbably reach the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year, the Beavers were playing downright good basketball.
And here’s the thing: the 2024-25 stabilization of a program left for dead is paying dividends for the future, as the Beavers lost no players in this offseason’s transfer portal.
“Returning nine that we had, you can’t put a price on that experience,” Rueck told The Oregonian earlier this month. “We’ve got a group that knows exactly what it takes, went through the highs and lows last year, and came out on top in the end.”
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
