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What a way to open the season!

In their Can-Am League season-opener at RCGT Park on Thursday night, the Champions got a game-winning, two-out, two-run homer by Danny Grauer in the bottom of the ninth inning of a 4-2 win over the New Jersey Jackals.

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“Anytime you get off a walkoff like that, it’s very exciting,” said Champions manager Hal Lanier. “It gets me going, it gets the team going and it got the fans going.”

The Champions were dominated early by John Walter, New Jersey’s ace pitcher who tossed six innings of two-hit, no-run ball. Two innings after he left, the Champions scored a pair of runs to tie the game at 2-2. With two out, Robert Garza and Matt Helms singled and Daniel Bick delivered a two-run triple.

The Champions got out of a bases loaded, two-out situation in the top of the ninth when third baseman Ryan Brockett made a good play on a chopper.

One of the night’s storylines was the 24-year-old Walter, who got an invite to the Cincinnati Reds training camp this spring on the heels of a 2015 Can-Am season where he finished with a 10-2 record and a 3.07 record. Last Aug. 18, the former draft pick of the Kansas City Royals, whiffed 13 Champions.