Canyon High baseball won its summer league game over Golden Valley 3-2 at home on Friday.
With two outs and a runner on first, freshman Aydan Litz hit a walkoff double in the ninth inning to capture the Cowboys’ win.
“I was thinking, ‘Just get on base,’” he said. “We had a runner on (base), we’ve just got to move them and keep going from there.
“There was a lot of emotion. I was pretty happy that we won that game.”
MORE: Valencia baseball opens summer play with win
For a Canyon program that finished 2-16 overall and 1-14 in league last season, the win was a welcomed good omen.
“The ball game is never over,” said Cowboys coach Drew Peterson. “It’s awesome to see that for Aydan.”
Canyon secured an early 2-0 lead in the first inning. The team scored a run on a Matthew Garcia sacrifice fly and on the same play, secured another run on a Grizzly error.
Golden Valley tied the game in the sixth inning. Bryant Colon fired off an RBI double then, in the same frame, Matt Broadwater hit an RBI single.
Cowboys starting pitcher Anthony Santillan was exchanged for Jace Root after that inning. Santillan allowed five hits and recorded two strikeouts in his time on the mound, while Root allowed two hits with one K.
“Santillan was throwing great, was locating, getting ahead early in the count, didn’t get his pitch count up and we were able to get him all the way into the sixth inning,” Peterson said.
“It was great for Jace, who was a freshman last year, coming in three innings and shutting it down, putting zeros on the board and giving us an opportunity.”
The Cowboys lost six seniors to graduation this past season, while Golden Valley parted with 18.
“We’re working on baseball,” said Grizzlies coach Steve Lombardi. “We’re working on teaching the game of baseball and from hitting to pitching to playing defense and there’s a big time learning curve because we have a lot of young guys.”
