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Congrats to the Happy Jack Dbacks!

A back and forth affair by the #1 and #2 seeds lives up to the hype as the #1 seed Happy Jack wins on a walk-off walk in the bottom of the 7th inning.

A back and forth affair by the #1 and #2 seeds lives up to the hype as the #1 seed Happy Jack wins on a walk-off walk in the bottom of the 7th inning.

Championship Game Summary

Payson's Cooper Cook drove in Julian Ferrari with an RBI double in the top of the 1st. In the bottom of the 1st, Happy Jack took a 2-1 lead with back-to-back doubles from Camden Grove and Gregory Fish. Starting pitchers Jude House and Luke Rons breezed through their halves of the 2nd inning with both striking out the side. The top of the 3rd saw Payson retake the lead 3-2 on a triple by Ferrari and two batters hit by pitches from new Happy Jack pitcher Fish. Happy Jack promptly answered in their bottom of the 3rd to tie the game 3-3 on 4 walks from Rons and new pitcher Ferrari. The 4th inning saw both Fish and Ferrari settle down and deliver shut out innings to keep the game knotted at 3. In the top of the 5th, Grove entered in to pitch for Happy Jack and retired the side 3-up, 3-down. The bottom of the 5th saw House lead off with a walk, who was moved over to 3rd base on a ground out, followed by another Fish base hit. Happy Jack then took a 4-3 lead on House's slide into home on Payson pitcher, Ramsey Horne’s wild pitch.

Payson led off the top of the 6th with a leadoff single by Cook, who was awarded 2nd base on a Happy Jack defensive interference. Cook advanced to 3rd base on a Grove wild pitch, but Grove retired the next two batters. With 2 outs, and the game on the line, Cook stole home to tie the game! Payson followed with a 2-out double by Kai Knudson, but Grove struck out the next batter for the 3rd out of the inning. Happy Jack rallied with a single by Elijah Isaac, but the offense stalled as Horne retired the side with 3 strike outs to end the 6th inning and send the game into extra innings.

The top of the 7th saw the California Tie-Breaker Rule put into effect. With the last-batted out at 2nd base, Happy Jack pitcher, Grove pitched another scoreless inning to send the home team up to the plate with a chance to end the game with a single run. A Horne hit batter and walk, loaded the bases with no outs for Happy Jack. Payson went to Keaton Raetz to get out the no outs, bases loaded jam, but it was to no prevail as Raetz walked in the winning run, to give Happy Jack the extra-innings win over an extremely competent Payson team.