At Friday’s CIF Division 2 Championship game at Lake Elsinore Diamond Stadium, Hart baseball emerged victorious in a nail-biting finale.

Jim Ozella, the Indians’ head coach for 25 years, called it a career after the 7-6 victory over Moorpark in the championship.

It seems to have become a tradition for Hart baseball head coaches to go out as champions because in 1999 former head coach Bud Murray won the big game in his season finale.

As spectacular as that is, it almost didn’t happen due to Moorpark’s near walk-off home run.

The Musketeers cut deep into Hart’s 7-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning.

When many thought Moorpark was down and out they had faith in themselves to make a comeback.

They started to do exactly that when they scored four runs to bring the game to 7-6.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Moorpark’s Taylor Busch hit what was originally called a walk-off home run, and the Musketeers stormed the field to celebrate.

But the call was overturned by the umpires moments later stating that the ball bounced in the field of play and went out over the left wall.

While it wasn’t a home run the umpires ruled a ground-rule double.

After a close call, the Musketeers had the Indians on their heels and Hart needed to lock in to get the job done.

In the heat of the game, Hart called on their closer Ian Edwards. 

Edwards, using his unique submarine style of pitching, forced two ground outs.

With the game on the line with two outs and two players on base for Moorpark Edwards stepped up to the mound once more.

On the last play of the game Hart’s Mathew Perez caught a flyout to secure a championship for the Indians.

Before the Musketeers’ near comeback Hart had full control of the game starting off 3-0 in the first three innings of play. Moorpark began to show signs of life tallying two runs in the bottom of the fourth close in on Hart’s 3-2 lead.

After a scoreless fifth inning by both teams, they heated things up in the sixth with four runs apiece, bringing the game to 7-6.

After trading blows the two squads went into the last inning where at one point Moorpark thought they won.

Despite the outcry from Moorpark players and others regarding the decision to overturn the home run, it is done, and Hart will go down as the 2024 CIF Division 2 champions. For Ozella, winning his first championship and yet another Foothill League title is a storybook ending to his coaching career.

During his time as Hart’s head coach, Ozella won the Foothill League Championship 12 times and was runner-up in 1989 and 2015.

More impressive is that during his time as head coach, Ozella produced nine MLB players including Jerry Owens, Jamie Sheilds, Chris Valaika, Trevor Bauer, Steve Susdorf, Michael Montgomery, Trevor Brown, Pat Valaika and current Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow. 

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