Marist Catholic senior Gianni Lombardi chases another state title

Gianni Lombardi’s senior year at Marist Catholic ended with something few high school athletes ever get: a state championship in basketball and another in baseball. The Eugene standout had already helped the Spartans win the OSAA 4A boys basketball title in March, and he then closed his final high school season by leading Marist past Tillamook 4-3 for the school’s first baseball state championship.

That baseball final, played June 6 at Roto-Rooter Park in Keizer, carried more than the pressure of one game. It was Lombardi’s fourth state championship game, a sign of how often he has been at the center of Marist’s biggest moments. It also ended a long run of near-misses for the program, which had fallen in the previous two title games in 2024 and 2025 before finally breaking through.

Lombardi was at the center of the breakthrough. He earned player of the game honors by pitching 5 2/3 innings, striking out eight and going 2-for-3 with an RBI. That was a sharp reversal from the 2025 state final, when he was hit hard in a 14-3 loss to Pendleton/Nixyaawii and allowed 11 earned runs. Against Tillamook, he gave Marist exactly the kind of postseason stability the Spartans had been chasing.

The win also fit into a larger year for Marist Catholic, a private Catholic high school on Kingsley Road in Eugene that opened in 1968. The Spartans finished the baseball season 25-4 and reached the title game after beating Philomath, Phoenix and Scappoose in the bracket. Tillamook came into the final after defeating Hidden Valley, Estacada and Henley, but Marist scored four runs in the first three innings and held on.

In basketball, Lombardi had already helped set the tone for that double-title run. He scored a team-high 15 points as Marist beat La Grande 57-55 on March 14 for the school’s sixth boys basketball state title and first since 2008. Coach John C. Spath said Lombardi’s experience and leadership mattered throughout the postseason, and that big-game poise became the common thread across both sports. For Marist, the titles are now part of the program’s identity, and for Lombardi, they leave a standard the next Spartans will inherit.