Santa Margarita wins 2014 CIF Southern Section Division 1 baseball title over Foothill

LOS ANGELES -- A pitcher can impress with downright dominant stuff, like by recording eight of his first nine outs by strikeout. And sometimes a pitcher can be just as impressive by wiggling out of a tight jam with minimal damage.

Santa Margarita (Rancho Santa Margarita) ace Griffin Canning did both Friday night at Dodger Stadium, leading his Eagles to a 3-1 victory over Foothill (Santa Ana), a somewhat improbable achievement considering the depth in the playoff bracket and the Eagles' good-but-not-great regular season.

See the MaxPreps Southern Section Division 1 playoff bracket

Canning, a senior committed to UCLA, was downright dominant to start out. And when his control eluded him late in the game, he buckled down and coerced key double plays in the final two innings to limit carnage in innings where Foothill seemed poised to tie the game or take the lead.

"We ain't going with nobody else. Early in the game I looked at my scorecard and he already had like 10 strikeouts and I was thinking his pitch count was high. I asked my scorekeeper and he was at like 35 pitches. We knew we were gonna ride that horse all day. There's no other way to do it," Santa Margarita coach David Bacani, giving figures that weren't quite exact. "There was no doubt in our minds. Everyone on our team, they know we are gonna live and die with Griff."

Bacani never got his bullpen going. And he had good reason to in the sixth and the seventh.

After the Eagles pushed three runs across the plate in the top of the sixth against Hudson Hughes (who was good, just not as good as Canning), Santa Margarita's star came out and allowed the first four hitters of the bottom half to reach base. His third walk in the span of four hitters (to Trent Etchandy) walked in a run and the Knights crowd was ecstatic in anticipation of a rally.

No big deal. He just got a soft liner to shortstop Johnny Carr that was turned into a double play before a strikeout.

Then Canning walked the first two batters in the bottom of the seventh. No big deal again, he simply got the next batter to hit into a 4-6-3 double play and then induced a fly out from the next hitter to secure the title.

Canning said he had no visions of coming out of the game.

"No. no. Last game of the season, I was going to give it all I had," said Canning, who struck out 11 with two hits and six walks. "You just have those moments where you kind of lose it. You don't know what it is but it happens. My defense definitely picked me up. I couldn't have done it without them."

Foothill just didn't have an answer for Canning. Hughes was almost every bit as good for the first five innings, but his defense betrayed him once in the sixth and luck just wasn't on his side. A leadoff walk was the precursor to three runs coming across, as Canning's bunt single was thrown away allowing Nick Wallace to score and then Canning scored on a single by Nick Meyer. Jordan Steele hit a ball off his fists into short right field to plate Meyer for the third run.

Hughes finished with nine strikeouts in the complete game, with five hits and two walks.

The Division 1 final was hardly a matchup of favorites heading into the tournament. The Eagles were second in the Trinity League and came in with a 19-10-1 record, while Foothill entered at 22-10 after winning the Century League. Each team got hot at the right time and made it all the way to Dodger Stadium.

"The overall philosophy of our guys is understanding that we want to play our best baseball at the right time. That's what the CIF Division 1 playoffs are about. You've got to be playing your best at the right time," Bacani said.

Santa Margarita entered the game ranked 10th in the state and 47th in the nation in the MaxPreps Computer Rankings, and third in the Southern California Top 25. Foothill was 12th in the state and 50th nationally, sixth in the SoCal Top 25.

"When we take care of the ball we can beat anyone. Our coaches always preached peaking a the right time," Canning said. "We had huge wins at the end of the season and carried it into the playoffs."

See the Division 2 story and Division 3 blurb