Last year, the Orem baseball team made a deep run in the state baseball tournament as a No. 13 seed.

The Tigers are at it again.

This year Orem is the No. 9 seed but Carl Hermanson and his boys are off to the round of eight again after winning their Super Regional best-of-three series against Timpanogos on Friday. The Tigers won Game 1 on Thursday 4-3 and the Timberwolves claimed Friday’s first meeting 12-5 to force a deciding third game. In that game, Orem got a strong pitching performance from sophomore Owen Miller and freshman Blake Brotherson in relief to claim a 6-3 victory.

“We had our guy Owen,” said junior catcher Sawyer Slade, who drove in three runs in the second game. “He hadn’t pitched in a minute but we have trust in Owen and he came in absolutely dealing. And then Brotherson, yeah, he’s a legend.”

After allowing a pair of runs in the first inning, Miller settled down and kept Timpanogos scoreless for four straight innings. Brotherson allowed one run in the sixth but had a scoreless seventh to end the game.

” It’s the old saying, you’re only as good as your next starting pitcher,” Hermanson said. “Owen came out and absolutely just shoved. Maybe that’s not the best work but I mean, he was awesome for us. He really threw well. He really did a great job of pounding the zone and that sets the tone for everything.”

The score was tied at 2-2 in the bottom of the fourth and Orem scored twice on RBI singles from Slade and Cohen Strickland for a 4-2 lead. Slade helped add another pair of runs in the fifth with a two-out single and the Tigers led 6-2.

“We just trust each other,” Slade said. “When we looked like we had a rough patch (a five-game losing streak to end the regular season) we were playing good teams. So we just knew what we had to do and we know how we have to play to beat good teams. That’s what we’re doing.”

Brotherson induced a fly ball for the third out in the seventh and was mobbed by his teammates.

“We hit in key situations this whole series, where we didn’t a couple of weeks ago,” Hermanson said. “We missed out on big hits. This week, we got them. That’s just the difference.”

Timpanogos (17-10) won the first game of the day with offensive explosions in the first and sixth innings, batting around in both. A two-run double from Kayden Harding was the highlight as the T-Wolves took a 5-1 lead after one. Orem tied the game in the sixth with four runs. In the sixth, Timpanogos scored seven runs, including a pair of two-run singles by Chazz Crook and Harding, for a 12-5 lead that held up to force the third game.

Orem (21-8) now moves on to Bracket play as one of the final eight teams. Bracket play begins at Utah Valley University’s UCCU Ballpark on Monday.

“We expected to be there,” Hermanson said. “All year long our goal was to get to the eight and then you never know what happens after that. They’re ready. I know they’ve got everything they need to make a deep run. A lot of them played with us last year when we made that deep run. We’ve got a lot of good young guys that are killing it now.”

Slade said his team is confident they can make some noise in the next round.

“It says we’re the No. 9 seed but we play like we’re the one seed,” Slade said. “Everyone on our team knows that we can beat anyone we play when we play together. Last year we had the No. 1 seed in Olympus and we beat them. So hopefully well get Spanish Fork, the No. 1 seed this year.”