When you have a player named Stihl, it’s a good bet your baseball team is going to steal bases.

The Princeton Tigers swiped 31 bases over two nights in back-to-back games last week against Kewanee.

The Tigers had 17 steals on April 30 in an 11-1 win at home, tying for the 17th most steals in a single game in the IHSA records.

A road trip to Kewanee on May 1 did little to slow down the Tigers on the base paths where they pilfered 14 more steals in a 14-6 win.

Tiger coach Patrick Smith said stealing bases has to be a big part of the Tigers’ game plan.

“We’re not really hitting a lot of home runs, or slugging a ton. And we’ve got some fast kids,” he said. “We feel like that’s the way we’ve got to attack the game. Play a little more small ball, move guys over and cause a little chaos.

“It happened to work out last week for us a couple times. The kids are executing. They get a good read on the pitcher and do what we coach them to do. Get on base and run as hard as they can.”

Sophomore Jack Oester and junior Hayden Sayler led the Tigers’ thievery with four steals in the first game at home with Stihl Brokaw pilfering four at Kewanee, including a steal of home.

Over the two days, Brokaw and Oester each had seven steals followed by Braden Shaw and Sayler with five each and Abe Longeville at four.

“It is crazy. Our team was just getting really good jumps all game. We were all locked in from the first pitch,” Brokaw said. “One thing our coach has been preaching this year is aggression on the base paths, we want to cause havoc.”

On the season, Shaw and Oester each have 15 stolen bases with Brokaw right behind at 13.

Princeton is the eighth team to steal 17 bases in a single game according to IHSA records. Downstate Cairo, which had games of 23 and 17 steals in 2013, holds the record with 26 steals vs. Carbondale Trinity in 2012.

Game suspended

Monday’s Princeton at Hall game was suspended in the bottom of the first on the account of lightning. No makeup date has been set as of 7 p.m. Monday.