Hart baseball tops Simi Valley in epic 14-inning battle in first round of CIF-SS playoffs

NEWHALL – In Jim Ozella’s 25 years of coaching the Hart High baseball team, even he had never seen a game like Thursday’s CIF-SS Division 2 playoff opener against visiting Simi Valley.

The Indians needed 14 innings and heroics from multiple players to outlast the Pioneers and come away with a 5-4, walk-off win.

“It’s a classic right there,” said Ozella, who is retiring at the end of the season. “We started at 3:15. So it’s a four-and-a-half-hour game. And it was intense for the whole game for both sides.