After losing a series to No. 3 Arkansas, the No. 20 Auburn Tigers (33-16) (13-11 SEC) traveled down to Riddle-Pace Field to gain some momentum against the Troy Trojans (29-18) (13-11 Sun Belt). The Tigers rode a fast start, and electric bats from the whole team to win 11-4.
The Tigers started their fast start in the second inning, with Brody Moore scoring on a wild pitch, and in the same at-bat Nate LaRue hitting a sacrifice-fly to right field that scored Mason Land, but the real stretching of the Auburn lead started in the next inning when Sonny DiChiara hit a three-run 380 feet homerun over Troy’s big wall in right field, his 16th of the season. Auburn scored one more run in the third with Booby Pierce scoring off a groundout to make the score 6-0 going into the fourth inning.
Auburn extend the lead to 10 in the fourth thanks to a Kason Howell single that scored two, a Brooks Carlson double that scored one, and a Brody Moore single that scored one making the score 10-0 through the first four innings.
In a statement Head Coach Butch Thompson said "Everybody was locked in and had some great at bats."
Auburn would hold the lead throughout the entire game, the only scares that happened was in the fifth inning when a Leonard Tray single led to three straight walks and hit-by-pitches, when William Sullivan hit a single to make the score 10-3, but the only other score the Trojans had was a Brandon Schrepf solo Homerun in the bottom of the seventh to make it, but had already been accounted for a inning previous with a Nate LaRue single, meaning the game ended 11-4 Tigers win.
A total of five pitchers were called in for the Tigers to get the win Jordan Armstrong got the start and let up three earned runs on three hits, while contributing 4.1 innings pitched. Chase Isbell got his first win of the season contrubing an inning pitched and giving up no hits or runs on one strikeout. Konner Copeland, Tyler Drabick, Brooks Fuller, and Blake Burkhater finished the rest of the pitching duties only giving up two hits and one earned run combined.
About the game as a whole Head Coach Butch Thompson said “Up and down the lineup, it was a good bounce-back for us. We talked about being frustrated, flushing that and resetting, this was a good reset and a good start to the week."
The Auburn will be looking to ride this momuentuiom to win a SEC series since April 24th, in what is the Iron Bowl of baseball against the Alabama Crimson Tide. The series will start on Friday the 13th at 7:30 PM at Plainsmen Park as the Tigers will be looking to make up for last year losing the series in Tuscaloosa.
