A day after hitting a walk-off winner, Canyon Del Oro senior Carter Kahn led the Dorados to the Chris Moon Memorial Classic championship on the mound.
Kahn pitched six shut-out innings and three-hit Las Vegas Rancho to beat the Rams 2-0 on Thursday at Cherry Field.
“I’m having fun, it’s a great tournament, good teams out here, from out of state,” Kahn said. “It’s fun playing in it.”
Canyon Del Oro, the defending Division II state champion, will face Las Vegas (Nevada) Bishop Gorman at Cherry Field in the championship game of the 18-team tournament on Friday at 3 p.m. The Gaels, ranked 20th in the nation by MaxPreps, beat Burbank (Illinois) St. Laurence 16-3 in the other semifinal.
Rancho opened up the tournament with an 11-2 win over the hosts Tucson High. Then the Rams beat Cholla 8-4 and Boulder (Colorado) 15-5.
“Pretty special outing by Kahn,” said CDO coach Keith Francis. “He shut this team out, which is a very good hitting team. They scored a lot of runs this week and our infield defense was outstanding, made some nice plays, so overall I was pretty pleased.”
On Wednesday night, Kahn hit a walk-off single in CDO’s 5-4 win over Santa Barbara, (California) San Marcos to punch the Dorados’ ticket to the semifinals.
Kahn also hit a double in the semifinal victory.
“He’s really hit the ball and come on the last week,” Francis said. “Just from the offensive stand point, he’s really hitting very well and his pitching performance today was about as good as he’s thrown all year.”
Canyon Del Oro opened the tournament with a 27-0 win over Los Angeles Locke, the biggest win of pool play. Then in their second game, the Dorados beat Pueblo 9-2.
CDO (13-3) started Thursday's game with a run after senior utility player Emilo Reyna hit a triple in the first inning. Senior catcher Tristan Peterson drove in Reyna on a sacrifice fly.
“We worked really hard the last three games and just got to finish it all,” Reyna said. “We ain’t done yet.”
CDO’s second run came on an error in the third. Junior first baseman/pitcher Mason Myhre scored the Dorados’ third run on a wild pitch in fourth inning.
Last week the Dorados won the Arizona National Invitational at Phoenix Horizon.
“It’s a good win for the team, coming off that tournament in Phoenix,” Kahn said. “We didn’t want to get overconfident so it was good to get the win and get back to the championship game again.”
Kahn said being the lone Tucson team in the semifinals was important for the defending state champions.
“It really means something because we lost a lot of seniors last year and people didn’t think we were going to be as good as we were,” Kahn said.
