HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL : It’s No Baker’s Dozen but Hart’s Cookin’, 8-2 : Foothill League: Ace strikes out 11 as Indians trounce Saugus for 12th consecutive victory.

The Hart High baseball team hit bottom almost one month ago. Record: 0-6.

The Indians did win a game on March 22 but soon forfeited the victory because they used an ineligible player.

Since then Hart has made an ascent quite like the home run hit by No. 9 hitter Chad Ott Friday in an 8-2 victory over Saugus. Swift and surprising.

The Indians have won 12 consecutive games, six in Foothill League play, and are threatening to run away with the league title.

Saugus Coach Doug Worley was the latest to be floored by surging Hart.

“I was taken by surprise,” Worley said after the Indians broke open a game that was scoreless until the bottom of the third.

Ott’s homer with the bases empty in that inning primed Hart for a seven-run outburst in the fourth against Centurion ace Brad Fogel.

Just like that, the Indians put the game out of reach against the left-hander who had a 4-1 record and 1.49 earned-run average.

Fogel walked Brian Baron to open the fourth. With one out, he gave up a run-scoring 390-foot double to Eric Horvat. Fogel got Mike Bland to hit a ground ball for the second out. But then came another walk and consecutive singles by Eric Ballew and Ott to make it 4-0.

“(Fogel) looked like he was in control, then he lost it all of a sudden,” Worley said. “He was 2 and 2 on the first batter. The next two pitches looked like strikes, but they were balls.

“And then it was Katie bar the door.”

Jeremy Seipel hit a fastball over the right-fielder’s head for a triple to make it 6-0. Fogel walked Mike Hanes and Baron knocked him out of the game with a run-scoring single to left. Hanes made it 8-0 when he scored on a wild pitch by reliever Derek Lyons.

The Indians sent 13 batters to the plate, got five hits and left the bases loaded. Fogel threw 33 pitches, only 13 for strikes.

Fogel and Hart ace Chris Baker (5-2) were like ships passing in the night. Baker pitched a four-hitter and struck out 11. Three of his strikeouts came on pitches that were low and outside. Six others came on cut fastballs, which break like sliders.

“That’s my ‘out’ pitch pretty much, even more so than the fastball,” Baker said. “I threw it last time I faced them and they seemed to have trouble with it.”

Saugus (10-8, 3-3) received a bad omen with Hart’s first hit--a 330-foot home run by Ott. The 6-foot, 165-pound second baseman hit a fastball into the teeth of a stiff breeze and easily cleared the eight-foot fence in left.

“I knew it was out, it felt so solid,” Ott said of his first high-school home run. “I felt like I was in a SportsCenter highlight. I wanted to drop the bat and watch it, but my first-base coach gave me a dirty look.

“I came into the dugout and everybody had picked it up a notch. It opened up the door.”

Hart Coach Bud Murray is not surprised by the winning streak.

“You rant and you rave to get the kids to play ball one certain way,” he said. “You’ve got to get them on the same page. Now we’re on the same page.”

And Murray is doing more raving than ranting.