Following Thursday's victory over Timpanogos, Spanish Fork's Gentry Mitchell said, "All we wanted to do was get on the board first so we didn't have to come back."

In addition to simply getting on the board first, the Dons scored the first nine runs of the ball game on their way to an easy 12-5 win over Timpanogos in Orem.

Tyler Hanks knocked in Ward with a chopper in the hole and from there the Dons opened up the floodgates. Mitchell capped off a four-run first by hitting the first pitch he saw over the fence in left-center for a three-run homer.

"It felt good," Mitchell said. "I was seeing the ball good. The only thing I was thinking was execute."

Spanish Fork kept the pressure on in the top half of the second with five more runs to open up a 9-0 lead after an inning and a half. Shaun Peterson opened the inning with a single to left. Ward, Hanks and Kade Christensen also had hits during the big inning.

The Dons used a combination of well-hit balls into the outfield, some perfectly-executed hit-and-runs and some fortunate bounces on balls that bounced in front of home plate and high into the air to take control early on.

"Luck never hurt anybody in this game," said Spanish Fork coach Jim Nelson with a laugh. "Yeah, we had some lucky things happen right there and any time you can get a little bit of that, you'll take it."

Although a few of Spanish Fork's runners reached base via fortuitous bounces early on, luck had very little to do with the Dons' overall offensive performance in which they pounded out 13 hits and also did their jobs in key situations.

"We were able to get to their pitching and I thought that we executed offensively as well as we have all year," Nelson said. "We got our bunts down. When guys were on third, we got a fly ball to the outfield. Once we got ahead 9-0, we just thought if we could answer with a run or two every time they did that we'd be ok."

And answer each time the T'Wolves scored is exactly what they did. When Timpanogos scored two in the bottom of the second, the Dons scored one in the top of the third. When the T'Wolves pushed a run across in each of the third, fourth and fifth innings, Spanish Fork also scored a run in each of those frames.

Even when Timpanogos looked like it was finally going to put together a big inning in the sixth after Jordan Cooper singled and Bret Lopez walked to start the inning, the Dons quickly extinguished the threat. Brock Duke struck out the next batter and Spanish Fork ended the inning with Hanks flipping to Shaun Peterson, who threw to first for a 6-4-3 double play.

Although Duke didn't have his best stuff considering he allowed 10 Timpanogos hits and walked or hit another six batters, he pitched well enough to win and always came up big in crucial situations. Duke got better as the game wore on, as six of his eight strikeouts came in the final three innings.

"I've got to hand it to Brock because he just competed really well," Nelson said. "He had base runners a lot of innings and had to pitch out of trouble and he found a way to make big pitches and get the big outs when he needed them."

While Duke produced another solid start, Mitchell helped the offense by going 1-for-2 with five RBI, two of which came on sacrifice flies. Ward, Hanks and Kade Christensen each went 3-for-4 while Peterson had a pair of hits and a walk.

Timpanogos' Taylor Lyons added a pair of hits for the home team.

In the two-game series, each team produced a convincing win, but Nelson doesn't believe the lopsided games portray how similar the teams really are.

"Not very indicative of how close these two teams are and how close most the games we play against each other are," Nelson said. "The difference in the two games was Monday, Rhett Nelson stepped up and pitched a great game against us and today, Brock Duke stepped up and pitched a great game against them. We got the breaks today, they got the breaks on Monday. Really two close, evenly matched, very good baseball teams."

With Lone Peak defeating Pleasant Grove 5-4 on Thursday, Spanish Fork's win leaves it with the No. 2 seed in from Region 4. Timpanogos will go to the playoffs as the region's No. 4 seed. Both teams will begin the playoffs on Tuesday, as the Dons host Layton and the T'Wolves travel to face Viewmont.

Spanish Fork 451 110 0 -- 12 13 0

Timpanogos 021 110 0 -- 5 10 2

Lyons, Olsen (2), Wolfe (4) and Foster. Duke and Lunceford. WP-Duke. LP-Lyons. 2B-Peterson (SF), Lyons (T), Mehlhoff (T). HR-Mitchell (SF).

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