The South Effingham Mustangs’ baseball team finally won a Game 3 and is headed back to the state semifinals.

The Mustangs rallied and held off a determined Riverwood to claim their Class AAA quarterfinals matchup with a 10-7 victory Wednesday afternoon at The Corral. It is the third trip to the Final Four in four years for the Mustangs, who until Wednesday had never won a Game 3.

“At some point in time, we have to win a Game 3,” a tired Mustangs coach Tony Kirkland said. “It might as well be today.”

The Mustangs, behind another stellar effort from pitcher Jesse Osborne, rolled to a 7-3 win in the opener. They were poised for a third straight sweep of a team named the Raiders in the playoffs, up 4-0 in the bottom of the fourth. But Riverwood stormed back, and Michael Abrahams’ RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning lifted Riverwood to a 6-5 win in Game 2 and forced Wednesday’s decisive third game.

Riverwood (26-8) appeared as if it would repeat its magic again, erasing a 5-1 Mustangs’ lead and going ahead 7-6 in the fourth.

“You can’t count our kids out,” Raiders coach Mike Santoro said. “It’s a hard working group, no matter how young they are. They played hard all year long.”

But the Mustangs chased starting pitcher Brian Mills and greeted reliever Brian Stewart roughly, while getting more sensational relief work of their own.

After a one-out walk to Zack Anderson, Patrick Styblo singled to right, chasing Mills. Paul Cheeks then drilled a two-run double into the gap in right center and Colby May followed with an RBI double to left.

From there, Matt Zettler, who worked both ends of Tuesday night’s doubleheader, and May set down the Raiders, retiring eight of 10 batters. Second baseman Chris Zittrouer started a double play to end the sixth and May got Evan Douglas to foul out to third baseman Waylon Pickard to end it.

“I didn’t have a doubt,” Pickard said of the final pop up that was twisting the breeze. “But I thought it might go over the fence.”

Said Kirkland: “If it stayed in, I knew Pick had it.”

As he clutched the ball and teammates erupted in jubilation, he knew what the out and the win meant.

“Final Four,” he said. “We’re there.”

But the Raiders almost dashed the Mustangs’ hopes Wednesday. Ryan Cole went two innings, giving up a run, before his elbow began bothering him again. Anderson worked the next two innings, but the Raiders rallied. Tyler Thornburg — who also made two sensational catches in center field, one of them robbing Cheeks of a hit as he dove headlong toward the fence — lifted a fly ball that barely cleared the fence and stayed inside the foul pole for a two-run shot.

The homer gave Thornburg a home run in each of Riverwood’s playoff series, and the senior finished hitting .550 for the season.

“We’re so used to that now,” Santoro said of Thornburg’s defensive plays. “He’s the best competitor I’ve ever seen.”

Thornburg, who has signed with Charleston Southern, made an impression on the Mustangs and their fans alike.

“You’re not gonna find a better baseball player than Thornburg,” Kirkland said.

With two outs in the inning, Riverwood strung together four straight hits — the Raiders outhit the Mustangs 12-8 in the finale — and Kelly Woodruff brought in two runs with a single down the left field line.

“They are a scrappy bunch,” Kirkland said. “They hit the ball. But we battled and battled.”

“They’re like us,” Pickard said. “They don’t quit.”

South Effingham had taken a 5-1 lead, thanks to Zittrouer’s RBI single, Anderson’s two-run triple to right and Styblo’s two-run homer to right.

“I was just swinging to get a base hit,” Styblo said. “I was thinking double the whole way.”

A dropped throw on Matt Tufts’ grounder to second with two outs kept the inning alive.

“Every mistake we made killed us,” Santoro said. “They capitalized. South Effingham won the game, but we didn’t help ourselves.”

Kirkland figured the game would be high-scoring — “I thought we’d have to put up a 10-spot,” he said and got disheartened when Woodruff’s two-run single gave the Raiders the lead in the fourth.

“I never felt comfortable,” he said.

But his players figured they could find a way to pull it out.

“I knew we were going to take it back,” Styblo said. “They were a great team, but we were going to fight back in the end.”

Said Pickard: “We had to find a way to stop it. I figured if we got a three-up, three-down inning, that would do it. The double play (in the sixth) built so much momentum in our dugout.”

Zettler threw 53 pitches in 3 1/3 innings in the first two games and allowed a hit and a walk in two innings Wednesday. May picked up his third save.

“Again, Zettler was huge,” Kirkland said. “He saved our pitching staff.”

In the opener, Osborne allowed three runs on two hits and struck out five before giving way to Zettler in the sixth.

Meanwhile, the Mustangs’ bats rapped out 10 hits. John Roberts was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and Kiefer Youmans was 2-for-3 with three RBIs. Pickard went 2-for-2 and drove in two runs.

Pickard staked the Mustangs and Styblo to a 3-0 lead, clearing the bases with a liner to right field that skipped past right fielder Jonathan Aroget. The Raiders loaded the bases with no outs in the first, but Styblo struck out James Gilbert and Youmans made a diving catch of Abrahams’ liner to center, eventually doubling up Brian Stewart off third base after he left too soon.

But the Raiders, down 4-0 in the bottom of the fourth, rallied to cut the lead to 4-3 and after Youmans tripled and scored on a wild pitch in the sixth, the Raiders pushed across the tying runs in the bottom of the inning.

With the bases loaded and one out, and one run already in, Woodruff barely beat out a double play grounder to third, eliciting an argument. As they went on, Woodruff broke for second and the throw to get him sailed into center, allowing Thornburg to race home for the apparent go-ahead run. But the home plate umpire had called time as the Mustangs protested the safe call at first and sent both runners back to their original bases, prompting the Raiders to voice their displeasure.

The Mustangs loaded the bases with one out in the seventh, but Thornburg got Roberts to ground into a 1-2-3 double play. They had runners on second and third with two outs in the eighth but could not score.

Thornburg went the distance, striking out six and walking three while giving up 10 hits. Youmans, Pickard and Zittrouer were each 2-for-4. May got the loss, going 2 1/3 innings with three strikeouts, two hits and one walk.

The Mustangs will host  Columbus on Memorial Day for the first two games in a best-of-three series. Game time is scheduled for 5 p.m.