May 19—COMMENTARY
It’s a tradition.
That’s what the banners, posters and signs that decorate Lewiston ahead of the 69th annual Avista NAIA World Series would suggest.
Every May, folks from throughout the LC Valley and beyond gather at Ed Cheff Stadium on the campus of Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston to watch the NAIA’s best baseball teams determine a national champion.
This year, the home team, Lewis-Clark State Warriors, are back in the World Series after a two-year hiatus. As the third seed, LC welcomes eighth-seeded Tennessee Wesleyan for the fourth and final game of a jam-packed Day 1 of the Series at 7 p.m. Friday.
With the exception of Sunday, the Series runs continuously through next week, concluding Friday, May 29 or Saturday, May 30, if necessary.
LC State isn’t the only local school that gets to enjoy America’s Pastime in late May.
For the first time since 2010, the Washington State baseball team is playing in the postseason, having qualified for the Mountain West Conference Tournament.
More on the Cougs in a bit.
The World Series is a big deal to the participating schools and the collection of local communities divided by the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, and — magnified by a glance at social media — also divided by a myriad of other things both trivial and deeply consequential.
Sports, and the NAIA World Series in particular, have the unique ability to rally hundreds of otherwise strangers under one banner, casting aside whatever differences and biases they may harbor for a couple hours of bliss.
For a matter of hours as the sun sets over the distant hills, hundreds live and breathe off every pitch, every swing, every failure, every triumph. It’s a beautiful thing.
However, as someone who spent three years 34 miles up the road from Harris Field’s home plate, it wasn’t until getting a job at the Lewiston Morning Tribune and moving to our dear valley from Pullman that I even heard of the NAIA World Series.
Of course, school was out of session and I was not in Pullman during past iterations of this sacred event. In my nearly two years of living in the valley, I’ve come to realize how both interconnected and isolated Lewiston and Clarkston can be from the Palouse.
Now, I’m sure that there are a slew of World Series regulars who make the trip down the Lewiston hill every year for the event. There’s a major difference between a student in these towns and a local.
Regardless of how broad or contained local excitement for the World Series is, there are a lot of reasons you should care about the event this year, no matter where you live.
For one, the Lewis-Clark State Warriors are back.
After LCSC was eliminated in the Opening Round each of the last two years, the school made a change at the top and brought back its former coach, Jeremiah Robbins.
Robbins, whose LC Warrior squads played for the national championship in five of his six years and won it all in three straight years from 2015-17, has the Warriors back in the World Series with a reimagined roster that boasts perhaps the most complete pitching staff in the NAIA and an offense rich with heavy hitters.
Other teams in the World Series include top-ranked Taylor (Ind.), series regular Georgia Gwinnett and reigning national runner-up Southeastern (Fla.).
With attendance dipping during consecutive LCSC-less Series, it will be refreshing, perhaps even mesmerizing, to see the community rally around the home team as they have so many times before en route to an NAIA-best 19 national championships.
For Washington State baseball fans, these are uncharted waters for this iteration of the program.
There hasn’t been much to write home about regarding the WSU baseball program during a 16-year postseason drought. Coaches have come and gone — fired or hired away — and the Cougs got close under former coach Brian Green, who left WSU for Wichita State in 2023.
A once-winning program needed a new leader in a rapidly changing college athletics landscape.
As a pitcher by trade and the former head man at Loyola Marymount, WSU coach Nathan Choate inherited a program with a rich history that just hadn’t gotten over the hump of even qualifying for a recently introduced conference tournament structure.
Now Choate, in his third year at the helm after sailing the Cougars through the collapse of the legacy Pac-12 and through two years of the Mountain West, has the Cougars in a spot where they haven’t been in a long time.
At 27-25 overall and 15-9 in MWC play, WSU earned the No. 2 seed in the MWC Tournament, happening this weekend in Mesa, Ariz.
The Cougars will play the winner of Thursday’s Air Force/UNLV game at 6:05 p.m. Friday. Survive the bracket over the weekend, and the Cougars would be headed for an NCAA Regional.
So, it’s going to be a rather eventful weekend for the region’s two college baseball teams, with LC State making its triumphant return to the World Series at 7 p.m. at Harris Field and the Cougars playing in the postseason down in Arizona. That’s not even including the Gonzaga baseball program, which boasts a 22-5 West Coast Conference record — its best WCC record in program history.
Whether you’re in the crowd in Lewiston or Mesa, make time for America’s Pastime this weekend.
You probably won’t regret it.
Radio
Mountain West Conference Tournament: No. 2 Washington State vs. Air Force/UNLV winner, 6:05 p.m., KQQQ-AM/FM (1150/102.1).
Avista NAIA World Series: No. 3 Lewis-Clark State vs. No. 8 Tennessee Wesleyan, 7 p.m., KOZE-AM (950).
TV
Mountain West Conference Tournament: No. 2 Washington State vs. Air Force/UNLV winner, 6:05 p.m., ESPN+ (streaming).
Avista NAIA World Series: No. 3 Lewis-Clark State vs. No. 8 Tennessee Wesleyan, 7 p.m., Urban Edge Network (streaming).
Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2260, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.
