Veteran coaches: Nelson, Moore produce excellence year after year
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- Timpanogos baseball coach Kim Nelson, right, and Provo coach Lance Moore prepare for a 4A Region 8 baseball game in Orem on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Timpanogos baseball coach Kim Nelson, right, and Provo coach Lance Moore prepare for a 4A Region 8 baseball game in Orem on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Provo coach Lance Moore, left, has a discussion with the home plate umpire in a 4A Region 8 baseball game against Timpanogos on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Timpanogos baseball coach Kim Nelson watches the action in a 4A Region 8 game against Provo on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Provo first baseman Malachi Aulava, left, tries to dig out an errant throw as Canyon Clegg of Timpanogos races to the bag in a 4A Region 8 baseball game on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Provo’s Will Gulbrandsen throws a pitch against Timpanogos in a 4A Region 3 baseball game on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
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- Tyten Day of Timpanogos throws a pitch against Provo in a 4A Region 8 baseball game on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. Day struck out nine batters to earn a 10-0, five-inning victory.
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- Shane Eaquinto of Timpanogos (17) slides safely into second while Provo’s Dawson Moore applies the tag in a 4A Region 8 baseball game on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. Timpanogos won in 10-0 in five innings.
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- Canyon Clegg of Timpanogos slides into third base in a 4A Region 8 baseball game against Provo on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
Two of the longest-tenured prep baseball coaches in Utah were at it again on Wednesday in Orem.
Kim Nelson (Timpanogos) and Lance Moore (Provo) have combined for 55 years of head coaching experience and 777 victories at their respective schools. Like every other game they’ve ever coached they stood near home plate before the first pitch to exchange lineups, chat with the umpires and discuss ground rules for the field.
Nelson, who was an All-American baseball player at BYU, said his first coaching job came after a playing stint in the Minnesota Twins organization in the early 1980s.
“I came back and had a semester of school to finish at BYU,” he said. “I helped my brother Dave at UVU for that baseball season and that was the first time I’d ever coached. The next year I was an assistant at Viewmont, and the year after that I was hired as an assistant at American Fork.”
After one year as an assistant, Nelson was named the head coach for the Cavemen and handled that position for 15 seasons (and won two state titles). He moved over to Timpanogos when that school opened in 1996. He’s the only head baseball coach the T-Wolves have ever known and has produced seven state championships.
“Quite honestly, I think I learned more as a coach when I helped Davis Knight as an assistant in football at American Fork,” Nelson said. “As a player at BYU, I thought Glen Tuckett was the cream of the crop of coaches and I still do a lot of things I learned from him. But in football I learned a lot about how to handle kids and parents, not so much about the game itself.”
Coaching has been something of a flat circle for Nelson: One of his current assistant coaches at Timpanogos is Turner Knight, the grandson of Davis Knight. Nelson also coached Turner’s father, Brock, at American Fork.
“I look back and I don’t know if there’s anything I would trade for any of it,” he said. “It’s been great.”
Moore is Provo guy through and through and bleeds green from every pore. He was an assistant for Vance Law for a couple of seasons for the Bulldogs. When Law took the BYU job in 2000, Moore became the head coach at Provo and has been there ever since.
“I learned a lot about baseball from Vance, but he was such a man of integrity,” Moore said. “I’ve coached against guys who use gamesmanship and shady tactics my whole life. Vance wouldn’t do that. He was a good man. And I know that when I retire I don’t want to be the guy who won championships but did it pretty shady.
“The bottom line is I’m going to get my kids who want to play college baseball but I’m also going to build a culture where when those kids have kids, they want to come back to play at Provo. I love these kids and I’d do anything for them. And they’d do anything for each other.”
Timpanogos (14-5 overall, 8-0 Region 8) has had the upper hand lately, scoring 11 runs in the sixth inning of Tuesday’s 15-3 victory against the Bulldogs and getting things going early on Wednesday. The T-Wolves turned three hits, two walks and a couple of Provo errors into four runs in the bottom of the first, with an RBI single from Jackson Sotelo and an RBI triple from Carter Hall.
Timpanogos put up four more runs in the second inning, batting around the order once again. Collin Morgan got an RBI on a sacrifice fly and a single from Jace Hunter produced another run for an 8-0 advantage.
A two-run triple by Sotelo gave the home team a 10-0 lead heading into the fifth. Timpanogos right-hander Tyten Day, who cruised through the first four innings, gave up a hard-hit single through the box to Gehrig Orchard for Provo’s only hit of the game. Day, who struck out nine batters, mowed through the final three Bulldogs with K’s to end the game.
It was a tough day for the Bulldogs (11-8, 5-3) and Moore, who had several run-ins with the home plate umpire about his “demeanor.”
“I’ve never experienced anything like that it my life,” Moore admitted. “But I’ve been coaching for a while and I think I can go a few more years. And you know what? There’s no place I’d rather be because I feel like I’ve got the cream of the crop in these young men. Sometimes we know we don’t have the experience or the talent, but we improve year in and year out.”
In addition, the Bulldogs have had the top grade point average among Utah 4A prep baseball teams two of the past three seasons.
“Give me these kids over any other kids, just because they are such quality individuals,” Moore said. “I throw three freshman starters out there today. You look at my guys, and they are growing. They are going to keep competing.”
