Sunnyside junior Joey Molina hit his second career walk-off on Thursday night to cap a two-run ninth inning rally.
Team Teal rallied to score three runs over the last two innings to beat Team Copper 6-5 in the Garb Athletics/OC Sports Southern Arizona Division II Futures game at Catalina Foothills.
The Southern Arizona All-Star series wraps up Friday night with the Division III, IV and V futures game at Foothills. First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Before Thursday night, Molinaβs only other career walk-off came against Phoenix Greenway in the 2015 state playoffs.
βI had to follow up with the hitters before me,β Molina said. βThey got the job done, put the ball in play and got the next hitter up.β
Team Teal tied it up in the ninth when Sahuaro junior Jake Adams hit an RBI double. Adams then stole third before Molina singled, setting up his head-first slide to score the winning run.
Teal players split up to celebrate with both Adams and Molina before focusing on Molina and spraying him with water. To make things even sweeter, the rally came against Tucson Highβs sophomore standout George Arias.
βWhat else could you ask for?,β said Foothills coach Jim Baldwin, who served as the skipper for Team Teal. βBottom of the ninth inning against probably one of the best pitchers in Tucson; everybody knows it and you win the game.
βItβs exciting to play with a bunch of kids that love baseball and every kid in the dug out loves baseball, thatβs why theyβre here.β
Team Teal took a 3-1 lead in the second inning but didnβt score again until the eighth, when Salpointe Catholic sophomore Efrain Cervantes hit an RBI double for his second extra-base hit of the game. Team Copper, on the other hand, scored in the second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh but couldnβt put together any multi-run at-bats.
Molina said he knew they had a good team and that anything could happen.
βWe kind of felt it, that something good was going to happen and it was just fun,β Cervantes said. βWe prepared with the water and celebrated.β
For Team Copper, Mountain View junior Stan Berryhill went 3 for 3 with a walk. Sahuaro junior Stockton Pringle gave Team Copper the lead in the sixth inning with an RBI single
Baldwin said they tried to split up high school teammates as best they could, in an effort to help opponents bond more.
βItβs not easy and obviously every one of these kids is a star on their own team and they get to come in here and sit on the bench,β Baldwin said. βI commend the kids that were on the bench, they didnβt get down, they didnβt pout about it, they actually were teammates and that was pretty cool.β