Oro Valley Canyon del Oro defeated Tucson High 8-5 Thursday night in Division II playoff action. The win sends the Dorados to the state championship game while the Badgers will face Tucson Salpointe in the elimination final on Saturday night.

Tucson leads the nation with 29 state championships and the state with over 1,360 wins but, since 1979, Canyon del Oro has recorded seven state titles and produced seven major leaguers.

As far as "big schools" go from Southern Arizona, Nogales (9) and Douglas (8) have more state championships than the Dorados but Nogales hasn't won one since 1981 and Douglas since 2001.

Tucson Sahuaro? The Cougars are next with three championships but none since 1982.

The Badgers are the all-time standard and the Dorados are current standard. It's a classic matchup.

The last time the two programs met in a high-stakes game was the 2002 5A state championship game where Keith Francis led the Dorados past Oscar Romero and the Badgers 8-6.

How long ago was that? Max Smith, Hayden May, Nick Ames, Trevelle Hill and Jacob Federico were just getting out of Tee Ball.

Smith took the mound for Canyon del Oro and he held the Badgers scoreless through three innings. An unearned run in the fourth and two more runs in the fifth caused a pitching change but Smith left Spencer Packard in great shape with a 7-3 lead.

Erick Migueles hit a triple in the second inning to score Tristan Peterson in the top of the second and the flood gates opened up in the top of the fifth thanks to six runs on six hits with Smith and Ames producing RBI doubles.

Jose Contreras held firm against a Dorado lineup that include eight future college players with his defense helping out by throwing out three runners at home and another at third but outs came difficult to come by in the fifth.

Canyon del Oro added another in the top of the sixth to take an 8-3 lead but Tucson made everything more interesting in the bottom of the seventh by working the bases loaded with no outs.

Alex Kelch and Hill drew back-to-back walks and Miguel Figueroa was hit-by-pitch. Migueles had taken over pitching duties and he picked up a strikeout and a sac fly to get two quick outs.

Nick Sandoval picked up the RBI on the sacrifice, scoring Kelch and then Kyle Rivera singled in Hill to make the score 8-5 with two runners on. Martin Garcia followed with another single that seemingly loaded the bases but the Dorados got out of trouble thanks to aggressive running on the play for the third out.

As stated before, the win sends Canyon del Oro to the state final on Tuesday, May 19 at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Coincidently, that night is also the date for the school's graduation ceremony. The school administration team is researching special options to allow the players some sort of ceremony.

Salpointe also has a graduation predicament since their graduation is set for Saturday afternoon, hours before their elimination game against Tucson.

Salpointe advanced by defeating Tucson Sunnyside 6-3 earlier in the day. The Blue Devils took a 3-0 lead in the top of the third thanks to an RBI from Chris Celaya and a bases loaded walk by Carlos Moreno.

Ernie Bonillas also scored in the frame on an attempted steal at home but he was aided by a passed ball on the play. It would have been a close play.

The lead didn’t last long after Salpointe responded with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning.

Juan Durazo singled, Robby Campillo reached on an error and Alex Diaz was walked to load the bases and all three scored on three straight RBIs.

Ernesto Romero shut Sunnyside down the rest of the way until the Blue Devils loaded the bases in the seventh but they were unable to score. Meanwhile, Brandon Alev came up with a huge triple in the fifth to help pace Salpointe to three more runs and the 6-3 final.

Donny Sands went 3-for-3 for Salpointe and took the mound in the seventh.

Sunnyside finished the season in fourth place and Salpointe can do no worse than third but the Lancers are shooting for a lot more.