Feb. 18, 2011
Playing in front of the largest Opening Day crown in Plainsman Park history, the No. 23 Auburn baseball team pounded out 13 hits in a 12-5 win over Arkansas State on Friday night. Creede Simpson and Casey McElroy each had three hits and Slade Smith pitched into the sixth as Auburn scored in five out of eight innings to pick up the win.
"I think we did some good things with the short game today," Pawlowski said. "We put some pressure on them. We bunted a couple of times and slashed a little bit. We have to create runs and I think that is what our team identity is going to be."
Auburn (1-0) capitalized on seven walks and two hit batsmen along with its 10 singles and three doubles to make a winner out of Smith (1-0), who surrendered four runs on six hits and a walk in 5 2/3 innings.
"Getting the ball on opening night, one I was excited to see the confidence the coaches have in me," Smith said. "And two, just to come out and show the hard work that I have put in along with the team, to finally get to play against someone other than ourselves and get the win is big for us."
Simpson finished 3-for-3 with a pair of walks and tied his career-high with four runs scored while McElroy was 3-for-4 with a walk and two runs scored.
"I was seeing the ball well and so were a lot of other guys and we were able to put some good swings on the ball and get some runs," Simpson said. "Our pitching did a great job for us. They kept us in the game."
Freshman Ethan Wallen threw the final 3 1/3 innings to pick up a save, allowing a run on three hits and a walk, striking out two.
Auburn scored four times in the third, taking advantage of four walks and a hit batter to rattle Arkansas State starter Andy Ferguson (0-1), who allowed five runs on five hits and five walks in four innings with four strike outs. McElroy and Tony Caldwell (1-for-4, R) each drew one-out walks and then Simpson and Dan Gamache (2-for-4, 2 R, RBI) each drew two-out free passes to push the first run across. After Justin Bryant (1-for-3, R, 2 RBI) was hit by a pitch to force in the second run, Zach Alvord (1-for-4, 2 RBI) singled to left to score two more to make it 4-0.
Kevin Patterson's sac fly in the fourth gave Auburn a 5-1 lead while an error in the fifth allowed Simpson to score to make it a 6-2 game.
Arkansas State (0-1) cut the lead to a run in the seventh at 6-5 as it scored twice in the sixth on consecutive singles by Claude Johnson (3-for-4, R, RBI) and Logan Uxa (2-for-4, RBI) and again in the seventh on a Jordan Castaldo (2-for-4, R, RBI) sac fly.
Auburn responded by putting the game out of reach with a four-run seventh, collecting three straight singles from Simpson, Gamache and Bryant and back-to-back one-out doubles from Justin Hargett (1-for-4, R, RBI) and Alvord to go up, 10-5.
Auburn scored twice more in the eighth on a Bryant fielder's choice and a throwing error on an attempted double steal for the finally tally.
The sellout crowd of 4,096 broke the previous opening day mark of 3,317 set in 2004.
"The crowd tonight was unreal," Simpson said. "I want to thank every fan that came out. We love playing for them."
"I was so excited when we came out for our pregame," Pawlowski said. "The stadium was packed and there were people in the parking deck. It just makes our guys want to play so hard and we are very thankful that all the fans came out."
Auburn returns to the diamond on Saturday at 1pm when it plays host to No. 13 Virginia, a 6-4 winner over UAB in the opening game of the tournament on Saturday.
Virginia rode the arm of starting pitcher Danny Hultzen to the win as he struck out 10 in 6 2/3 innings.
Cory Luckie gets the start for Auburn while Virginia will start Tyler Wilson.
Arkansas State and UAB will play at 5pm at Plainsman Park on Saturday, following the Auburn-Virginia game.
Auburn 12, Arkansas State 5 (Feb 18, 2011 at Auburn, AL)
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Arkansas State...... 000 112 100 - 5 11 4 (0-1)
Auburn.............. 004 110 42X - 12 13 3 (1-0)
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Win-Slade Smith(1-0) Save-Ethan Wallen(1) Loss-Ferguson, Andy(0-1) T-2:52 A-4096
Arkansas State-Auburn Box Score in PDF Format
Virginia-UAB Box Score in PDF Format
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