AUBURN, Ala. – No. 5 Auburn finished off a three-game sweep of South Carolina with an 11-10 walk-off win in game one and an 11-3 victory in game two Friday at Plainsman Park.
Auburn scored a program record 46 runs in the SEC series and finished off its home SEC schedule with a 12-3 record, tying the 1999 team for the most league wins at Plainsman Park in a single season.
“The offense absolutely won this series,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “It’s hard to talk about one offensive player when they all played for three games. It was as offensive as I can remember. Everybody contributed. We hit the long ball. We passed it down. We had the safety squeeze. We did some things that just leaded to success. I have heard a lot of confidence with the players, and that is what you need this time of year.”
Auburn (36-15, 16-11 SEC) totaled 31 hits in Friday’s doubleheader and 51 hits for the series, including 21 extra-base hits. Seven players collected multiple hits in the two games Friday, led by eight from Eric Guevara and six from Lucas Steele. Geuvara finished the weekend 12-for-15 with seven runs, five extra-base hits, and nine RBI.
“I would say just being on time for the fastball,” Guevara said of his success for the weekend. “Obviously, the guys in front of and behind me having good at-bats, giving me a lot of pitches to hit, it makes it easier. But being on time for the fastball and reacting to the offspeed for the most part was key.”
"I feel like this weekend we clicked as a whole,” Steele added of the offense. “Everybody in the lineup did their part, whether that was walking or getting a hit or hitting a homer. We put it all together, and it’s a really good feeling.”
GAME ONE
Trailing 7-8 after South Carolina scored six unanswered runs heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, Cooper McMurray tied the game with a sacrifice fly to left field, and the Tigers reclaimed the lead, 10-8, with Steele’s two-run homer later in the inning.
South Carolina trimmed its deficit with a two-out solo homer in the eighth and tied the game with a sacrifice fly in the ninth.
Chase Fralick started the ninth inning with his second hit-by-pitch of the game, and Bub Terrell entered to run for him. Terrell moved up on a passed ball and advanced to third on Chris Rembert’s third hit of the game. Guevara then dropped down a suicide squeeze to score Terrell and win the game, clinching the team’s ninth straight home series dating back to the end of last season.
Earlier in the day, Guevara picked up right where he left off Thursday night as he hit a 1-2 pitch off his headshot on the scoreboard to give Auburn a 2-0 lead two batters into the game. Rembert started the game with a single to extend his hit streak to 10 games.
South Carolina and the Tigers traded runs in the second with the Gamecocks scoring on a solo homer and Ike Irish hitting a two-out single back up the middle to score Fralick from second.
After the Gamecocks cut the deficit to one in the top of the third, Auburn answered with a four-run bottom of the inning, highlighted by Rembert’s three-run homer to take a 7-2 lead. The long ball as Rembert’s fifth in his last seven SEC games. After the first two batters of the inning were retired, Deric Fabian and Fralick kept the inning alive with a walk and hit-by-pitch, and Bristol Carter turned it over to the top of the order with a two-out RBI double down the right field line.
South Carolina scored for the third straight inning with three runs on four hits, including three doubles, to make it a 7-5 game in the fourth.
Both teams went scoreless in the fifth inning, and South Carolina took the lead with a three-run home run in the top of the sixth. A leadoff single and walk put two aboard and third baseman KJ Scobey hit a go-ahead homer to center.
Carson Myers steadied the game with 2.0 scoreless innings to allow for the offense to come from behind and ultimately win it in walk-off fashion.
GAME TWO
South Carolina jumped out to a 1-0 lead with a two-out double in the top of the first and extended its advantage to three with a two-run home run in the second.
However, Terrell stepped to the plate for the first time on the day in the bottom of the second and answered South Carolina’s long ball with a two-run shot of his own, marking his second of SEC play.
Terrell’s home run sparked Auburn’s offense to score 11 unanswered runs in the game as Griffin Graves (4-1) and Dylan Watts combined to pitch the last 7.0 innings. The duo retired 15 of 17 batters faced from the third through the seventh innings, including 11 straight from the end of the fourth through the seventh.
“I thought we made our mark on the mound once Graves got in the ball game,” Thompson said. “I thought Graves and Dylan Watts were amazing.”
Still trailing by a run heading into the bottom of the fifth inning, the Tigers tied the game on a wild pitch with runners on the corners and took the lead for good with McMurray’s three-run home run. The homer marked the 40th of McMurray’s career at Auburn, becoming the sixth player in program history to reach the milestone.
Auburn extended its advantage with runs in the sixth and seventh innings, including Steele’s third home run of the series, and capped off the scoring with a RBI double from Guevara, RBI single from Irish and RBI single from Steele in the eighth.
Graves earned the win as he matched a career high with 3.1 innings pitched and struck out a career high four batters, and Watts earned his second save with four strikeouts in 3.2 innings of work.
UP NEXT
Auburn wraps up its home schedule with a midweek matchup vs. Jacksonville State (29-20, 11-10 C-USA) Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT before traveling to No. 15 Ole Miss (34-15, 14-11 SEC) to finish the regular season.
“This is a three-week push, and now that two weeks are out of the way, we’ve got one more midweek home game and then travel for our series,” Thompson said of the finish to the regular season. “We have one more week to keep our head down and keep trying to play, and we will reevaluate and get ready for the tournament.”