Front Office Staff

Penny Knight, Sponsor

Penny has been the Knights sole sponsor from day one. She and her husband Phil have supported the program with much care and generosity. The team's growth and its winning tradition are strong thanks to Penny's commitment to the club.

Joe Segel, Co-founder

Joe co-founded Knights Baseball Club with his brother Dan. Joe works with Penny to make sure the program is running smoothly. Joe sits on the club's board of directors. Segel also sits on the Aloha High School Baseball Alumni Association board. Joe coached baseball as an assistant at Westview High School in Beaverton, Oregon in the nineties. On occasion, he will pitch batting practice for the Knights. Joe has worked for the Knight family for more than 20 years.

Dan Segel, President

Dan is president of the Corvallis Knights and chairman of the board of Knights Baseball Club, Inc. Dan was named West Coast League Executive of the Year in 2007, 2008 and 2009. An alumnus of Linn-Benton Community College, Dan was inducted into the NWAACC Hall of Fame in 2005.

He is a graduate of Aloha High School and Northwest Missouri State, and was an all-conference first baseman at NWMSU in 1987 and 1988.

Dan and his wife, Courtney, have three sons, Kellen, Kaden and Conor.

Brooke Knight, Head Coach

Brooke skippered the Knights to their first West Coast League crown as a rookie head coach in 2008 and added a second title in 2011. He also directed them to five consecutive West Division regular-season titles from 2008-12, and to the 2009 and 2012 WCL Championship Series.

Knight was the West Coast League Coach of the Year in 2008, 2009 and 2011. His five-year mark as the Knights' field general is 240-108 overall and a 201-99 in West Coast League games. This is Brooke's eighth year in management with the Knights. He played college baseball at Oregon State and at Western Oregon, and for the Knights during the summers of 1991, 1992 and 1994.

No relation to the Knight family, Brooke played professionally in the Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates organizations. Brooke also played football at OSU and played and coached baseball professionally in Australia where he met his wife, Karlie.

Brooke coached the Perth Heat in the MLB-funded Australian Baseball League to back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012. He also assisted legendary Corvallis Richey's Market American Legion coach Dick McClain for six seasons, and worked as a scout in the San Diego area for the Montreal Expos (2001) and the Florida Marlins (2002-2003).

Brooke is a native of Corvallis and a graduate of Crescent Valley High School and Western Oregon. He and his wife, Karlie, live in San Diego in the offseason and have a son, Briley.

Bre Kerkvliet, General Manager

A seven-year Knights' employee, Bre was promoted to general manager in Aug., 2012, after two seasons as the assistant GM. She is the first female GM in the WCL.

The Knights' 2011 Employee of the Year, Bre will continue as the director of business development. She's worked with the Knights ever since their move to Corvallis from Gresham, starting as an intern in 2007.

She is in Leadership Corvallis' Class of 2013, is also very active in Rotary, and serves on the board of directors for many community public service organizations in the area.

Born and raised in Corvallis, Bre grew up playing sports and played varsity soccer at Crescent Valley and Corvallis high schools. She's also been around baseball her entire life, starting as a volunteer at Richey's Market American Legion games in the summer.

Bre graduated from Corvallis High in 2004 and earned a degree in speech communications from Oregon State in 2009. In her spare time, she enjoys riding horses, traveling, watching college sports and hanging with friends and family.

Brooks Hatch, Director of Media Relations

Brooks joined the Knights in Jan., 2011, after a 34-year newspaper career, the last 26 of which were spent at the Corvallis Gazette-Times. He covered the Knights for the Gazette-Times since they relocated to Corvallis from Gresham before the 2007 season.

Brooks played baseball and soccer at East Aurora (N.Y). High School and graduated from the University of Richmond (Va.) in 1976. He worked at the Minot (N.D.) Daily News and the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune before moving to Corvallis in 1984.

He and his wife, Margi Dusek, have a son, Owen, a freshman at Crescent Valley High School.

Doug Blair, Director of Sales/Public Address Announcer

The 2010 Knights' Staff Member of the Year, Doug starts his second year as the team's public address announcer, and is in his seventh year in sales. Doug was born and raised in Corvallis, graduated from Corvallis High School in 1969, and graduated from Oregon State in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science in speech communications.

Doug's a veteran of local sports broadcasting and currently is the local sales manager for sports at Bicoastal Media.

Billy Clontz, Assistant Coach

Billy returns to the Knights this season after spending the 2012 season as an assistant coach with the Klamath Falls Gems. He helped guide the Gems to a third-place finish in the West Division in just their second year in the WCL.

A native of Corvallis who starred at Corvallis High School and for the Richey's Market American Legion program before playing at Mt. Hood CC and at Western Oregon, Clontz was a starter at several infield and outfield positions for the Knights in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He earned All-WCL honors for Knights' teams that advanced to the WCL Championship Series in 2008 and 2009.

Following his college career, Clontz joined a Knights' coaching staff that directed the club to a West Division regular-season title in 2010, and to a WCL championship in 2011. He also played and coached for the Morley Eagles in Australian baseball in 2011-12.

Connor Lambert, Pitching Coach

A four-year letterman at Washington State, Connor begins his third season as the Knights pitching coach after a standout 2012 season. The Knights led the WCL in ERA in 2012 and 2011; in 2011 they established a (since broken) WCL record for strikeouts (401).

He is also the pitching coach at Tacoma Community College during the school year.

Primarily a reliever at Washington State, Connor was 11-3 lifetime. He capped his career by going 5-1 as a senior in 2010, with two saves and a 3.53 ERA, helping the Cougars advance to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.

A graduate of River Ridge High School in Olympia, Lambert was a first-team all-state selection, the Pac-9 Conference MVP, the Olympian newspaper's Player of the Year, and a member of the Tacoma News Tribune newspaper\s all-area team as a senior.

He majored in sociology at WSU and was a graduate assistant coach there in 2011.

Jeremy Ainsworth, Head Trainer

Jeremey Ainsworth Jeremy returns for a seventh season with the Knights. As the club's head athletic trainer, Jeremy is responsible for game training, medical coverage, treatment and coordinating additional care. Ainsworth graduated from Oregon State with his Bachelor's degree in athletic training; he then earned his Master's in exercise and sports science at Oklahoma State.

Jeremy also works at PT Northwest and with Central High School in Monmouth. He is married and has two children.

Knights Baseball Club Board of Directors: Tony Fair, Eric Gunderson, Geoff Loomis, Jeff Moore, Don Nichols, Doug Nichols, Jeff Post, Randy Rutschman, Dan Segel, Joe Segel, Rich Sermone, Brett Smith, Rob Stewart.