Simi Valley reaches final

In a high school baseball classic that took 3 hours 15 minutes and 11 innings to complete, and that produced a series of nerve-racking, stomach-churning moments, Simi Valley was able to pull out a 6-5 victory over Santa Ana Mater Dei in a Southern Section-Toyota Division I semifinal game Tuesday at UC Riverside.

“It was an amazing game,” Simi Valley infielder Kyle Raskin said.

Added teammate and second baseman Matt Orloff: “It was just unreal from the first inning to the 11th inning.”

Raskin and Orloff were the difference between victory and defeat for the fourth-seeded Pioneers (24-8), who advance to Friday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game at Dodger Stadium, where they will meet defending champion Long Beach Wilson, a 5-3 winner over Norco in the other semifinal at Riverside.

In the bottom of the eighth, with Mater Dei having the bases loaded and two out, Raskin bobbled a ground ball but recovered in time to throw out Brian Frattali at first.

“My heart kind of stopped on that one,” Orloff said.

In the 10th inning, with the bases loaded and one out, Mater Dei’s Aaron Northcroft hit a grounder up the middle. Raskin, who started the game at third and finished at shortstop, picked it up, stepped on second and threw to first to complete a double play.

It was Simi Valley’s greatest escape and set the stage for Orloff’s third hit, a leadoff double in the 11th. He moved to third on a bunt single by Brent Keys and scored the tiebreaking run on Eric Bernstein’s sacrifice fly.

But Mater Dei came back in the bottom of the inning to put runners on first and third with two out. That’s when pitcher Jonathan Meyer, who started the game at shortstop and ended up throwing 4 2/3 innings of relief, his longest stint of the season, caught a soft line drive at his feet off the bat of Blake Arthur to end the game.

Mater Dei (25-6) finished with 19 hits, including three each by Tyler Rahmatulla, Frattali and Seth Smith. Simi Valley had 16.

The game started rocky for both starting pitchers. Ian McCarthy of Mater Dei gave up three runs and four hits in the first inning. Nick Russo of Simi Valley gave up four runs and four hits in the same inning.

Neither team scored again until Simi Valley got two runs in the sixth to take a 5-4 lead, getting a tying run-scoring double from Orloff and a run-scoring single from Bernstein.

Mater Dei was down to its final two outs in the seventh when Northcraft, Frattali and Derek Campbell contributed consecutive singles to tie the score, 5-5.

Campbell’s hit, on an 0-and-2 count against Meyer, drove in pinch-runner Kevin Francke from second base.

Then the real drama began.

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eric.sondheimer@latimes.com