April 1, 2011
AUBURN, Ala. - The Auburn pitching staff surrendered 20 hits to Vanderbilt on Friday night, falling to the top-ranked team in the country, 11-6, at Plainsman Park. The loss dropped Auburn's record to 15-11, 2-5 SEC while Vanderbilt improved to 24-3, 5-2 SEC.
"This was not a very clean baseball game," Auburn Head Coach John Pawlowski said. "We did a lot of things that you can't do in order to beat a quality team. We got the game to 3-2 and I thought we had our chances at that point but we didn't have an answer for the three spot and the four spot that they put up."
Andrew Morris (1-2) took the loss for Auburn, allowing nine hits - all singles - in three-plus innings, surrendering three runs in his first career SEC start.
Sonny Gray (6-1) picked up the win for Vanderbilt, throwing five innings and allowing two runs on four hits and three walks, striking out four.
Auburn trailed by a run, 3-2, after the bottom of the fifth after Justin Hargett's (0-for-2) RBI groundout scored Cullen Wacker (1-for-1, 2 BB, R) and Justin Fradejas' (1-for-2) single scored Creede Simpson (1-for-3).
Vanderbilt answered back with three runs in the sixth to go up 5-2 as Curt Casali (3-for-6, 2 RBI) and Riley Reynolds (4-for-5, 3 RBI) each had run-scoring singles, sandwiching a Jack Lupo safety squeeze.
Vanderbilt wasn't done there, scoring four times in the seventh, using four singles, a walk and a triple to put the game out of reach at 10-2.
Auburn scored twice in the eighth, first on a Casey McElroy (1-for-4, 2B) sac fly and then on a Wes Gilmer (1-for-4, RBI) RBI groundout, and twice more in the ninth as Zach Alvord (0-for-2) and Brooks Beisner (1-for-1) each drove in runs for the final Auburn runs of the night.
Vanderbilt, which finished with 20 hits, 18 of which were singles, had three guys finish with four hits each (Tony Kemp, Anthony Gomez and Reynolds) while Auburn's nine hits came from nine different hitters.
Auburn will attempt to even the series on Saturday at 6pm when it sends Jr. RHP Jon Luke Jacobs (1-1, 1.46) to the mound opposite Vanderbilt's Jr. LHP Grayson Garvin (4-1, 2.45). The game will air live on CSS as well as ESPN3.com.
Earlier on Saturday morning the baseball team and the Auburn Diamond Dolls will host the third annual Strike Out Cancer 5K. The run begins at 9am with a kids fun run, followed by the 5K. All runners will receive one free ticket to Saturday night's game. , Vanderbilt 11, Auburn 6 (Apr 01, 2011 at Auburn, AL)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vanderbilt.......... 011 103 401 - 11 20 0 (24-3, 5-2 SEC)
Auburn.............. 000 020 022 - 6 9 2 (15-11, 2-5 SEC)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Win-Sonny Gray(6-1) Loss-Andrew Morris(1-2) T-3:18 A-3546
Follow Auburn baseball on twitter at twitter.com/AUTigerBaseball.