Auburn shows late life, falls in opener vs. Ole Miss
Courtesy of Auburn Athletics
AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn sent the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning but ultimately dropped the series opener against Ole Miss 11-7 Friday night at Plainsman Park.
The Tigers were outhit by just one in the contest, but eight of Ole Miss’ 14 hits were for extra bases and all 13 of Auburn’s hits were singles.
“They got two big swings off, two three-run homers, and we didn’t,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “I think the hits were about even, 14-13, but I don’t think we had an extra-base hit. That was the biggest difference to me in the ballgame. We didn’t get the big hit to keep pace.”
Carter Wright collected a career-high four hits in the contest, marking the team’s first four-hit game in Southeastern Conference play, and is 6-for-10 with five runs in the last two games.
“He’s playing great,” Thompson added of Wright. “I thought he caught a great game tonight, had four hits kind of sprayed. You can tell he’s in a great approach. They’re just head high, hard line drives finding holes. He’s playing great for us.”
Ole Miss (24-21, 8-14 SEC) started the scoring with a solo homer from the second batter of the game, but Auburn answered with an unearned run as a ground ball off the bat of Caden Green made its way into left field to score Carter Wright, who started the inning with a single.
The Rebels reclaimed the lead on a RBI double with one out in the third and extended the advantage with a three-run homer from the next batter.
Auburn (21-23, 3-19 SEC) chipped away with a two-out RBI single from Mason Maners to cut the deficit to 5-2 in the fourth before making it a one-run game as a grounder to second made it way to right field to score two. Wright started the inning with his second hit in as many at-bats.
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Christian Herberholz entered in relief of Dylan Watts to start the fourth and retired the first five Rebels he faced, but Ole Miss strung together five straight hits with the most damage coming on the second three-run homer of the game to extend the lead to 9-4 in the fifth.
The Tigers threatened to cut into the deficit again by loading the bases on two hits and a walk in the fifth, but a hard hit grounder to shallow right went into the Ole Miss shift and resulted in the third out of the inning.
After Will Cannon worked a scoreless sixth, Ole Miss added a run on four walks in the seventh but left the bases loaded with an inning-ending strikeout.
Wright recorded his fourth hit of the night in the bottom of the seventh, and Green drove him in with two outs to make it a 10-5 game. The Tigers threatened to draw closer with a single from pinch hitter Eric Guevara and walk from Chris Stanfield to start the eighth, but three straight strikeouts from reliever JT Quinn ended the inning without any damage.
Ole Miss added a run on a two-out double and RBI single in the eighth.
Four of Auburn’s first five hitters in the ninth reached on a pair of single and a pair of walks with Kaleb Freeman driving in the sixth run of the game, and Ike Irish drew a bases loaded walk with two outs to bring the tying run to the plate. However, a strikeout left the bases loaded and ended the game.
The two teams are set for game two tomorrow at 7 p.m. CT on SEC Network.
