SPRINGVILLE — Baseball coaches love it when their team takes advantage of all three outs.
In the Orem Tigers' 12-2 six-inning Region 7 rout Wednesday over the Springville Red Devils, nine of the Tigers' runs were knocked in by two-out singles.
"That's about three games in a row now that we've been scoring with two outs," Orem coach Gary Miner said.
That kind of clutch hitting has vaulted the Tigers (6-1) to the top of the league at the halfway point, which is a pretty impressive start for a team that finished last season with a 3-17 record. The Red Devils (4-3) drop two games behind Orem with the home-field loss.
"You win one game or two and people say it's a fluke. You win three or four in a row and then people start saying that maybe you're for real," said Miner, in his first year at the helm of Orem's baseball program.
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In scoring in every inning but the first, the Tigers singled the Red Devils to death. Fifteen of Orem's 18 hits were one-baggers. During the mid innings, when they took control of the game, the Tigers scored eight runs on 12 singles. They scored three runs in the second on four straight singles and another three runs in the third on four straight singles.
The hitting stars for Orem were Isaac Strong, Jason Golightly and Goose Kallunki, who had three hits each. Strong and Kallunki both had two RBIs, and sophomore C.J. Harrison drove in three runs with two singles.
"If you can put the bat on the ball time after time and put pressure on teams, good things are going to happen. And right now we're just swinging the pipes extremely well," Miner said.
Springville tried to make a game of it in the bottom of the third, after the Tigers had taken a 6-0 lead, by loading the bases with three straight singles to start the inning. But those were the only hits the Red Devils would get the entire game off of Orem starter Golightly. Springville did score two in the inning when Danny Mecham's hard grounder bounced off the chest of Tigers' shortstop Jordan Sargent, but Golightly got out of the jam by retiring the final three hitters of the inning. The senior right-hander then retired the next nine Springville hitters he faced to end the game with no further damage.
"At this level, if you can throw strikes consistently you're going to get people out," Miner said. "And we're playing such good defense right now that our pitchers don't think they have to get people out themselves, and that's why were getting such good pitching."
The Tigers have another key matchup on Friday when they travel to face the Provo Bulldogs. Springville also plays on the road Friday, at Timpview.
E-mail: jimr@desnews.com