Canyon Eagles mount miraculous late-night thriller with Stephenville to steal Game 1 in walk-off fashion

LUBBOCK, Texas (KFDA) - The Canyon Eagles took down the Stephenville Yellow Jackets 7-6 on Thursday night in one of the craziest games of the high school season.

The Yellow Jackets got things started in the second inning after loading up the bases. The first run of the game came across as Tanner Smith was hit by a pitch, allowing Mason Haynes to come home to get his team on the board first.

Stephenville posted two more runs in the inning off of a throwing error by Canyon and a fielder’s choice to make it 3-0. Then, in the following inning an RBI double from Jadis Clemmer extended the Yellow Jackets lead once more to 4-0.

At that point, the game was put into a delay due to lightning in the area. The delay lasted over 90 minutes before the two teams were able to retake the field.

As action continued in the third inning, a sacrifice fly added another run for Stephenville to extend the lead to 5-0.

However, the delay certainly seemed to work in Canyon’s favor. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Canyon finally started to mount a comeback.

Two runs came home on a pair of walks drawn by Jacob Burris and Sam Johnson as Stephenville struggled to find an answer on the mound after the delay. Three different pitchers appeared in the fourth inning for Stephenville before an out was ever recorded. It was Jadis Clemmer who finally settled things down for the Yellow Jackets and got the team out of the inning still holding onto a 5-2 lead.

Then in the fifth, the Eagles brought two more runs home on an error at first, cutting the deficit to just one run with two innings to play.

However, Clemmer continued to be the key man for Stephenville. An RBI triple in the sixth swung momentum back in favor of the Yellow Jackets.

The Eagles had one final chance with two runners in scoring position in the seventh inning trailing 6-4. With two outs, junior Jacob Burris launched a triple to the wall in left field to bring both runners around to score and tie the game up at 6-6.

In the next at bat, it was the Sam Johnson stepping to the plate. The senior slugger was 0-for-12 since the start of the regional quarterfinal series against West Plains going into that at-bat. However, his struggles at the plate were about to end. On a 2-1 count, Johnson lined one into center field for a base hit to bring home Burris and give Canyon the walk-off win and complete the comeback after trailing 5-0.

The win marks the Eagles fourth one-run victory of the postseason. The Eagles are now one win away from going to the state tournament for the first time since 2003.

The two teams are scheduled to continue action on Friday in Lubbock at Texas Tech. First pitch for Game 2 is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. with Game 3 (if necessary) set to start following the conclusion of Game 2.

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