April 3, 2015
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AUBURN, Ala. -- Down 8-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning to No. 11 Tennessee, the No. 7 Auburn softball team was running out of chances to win its fourth Southeastern Conference series of the season.
Lady Vol relief pitcher Rainey Gaffin had been keeping the Auburn bats in check for four innings, striking out seven, the high total for a pitcher from either team in the game. But, Auburn knew its offense had what it took to score a large number in one inning. It had done it plenty of times before this season.
With some key walks and two singles from Branndi Melero and Jade Rhodes, Auburn had put two runs on the board to cut the lead to 8-6.
Auburn loaded the bases for the second time in the inning and brought Jenna Abbott to the plate with two outs. However, it wasn't in the cards Friday night as the Lady Vols evened the series with an 8-6 victory at Jane B. Moore Field.
In front of a season-high crowd of 1,736, it was nearly Auburn's biggest comeback of the season as Tennessee did lead by five at one time. The only other time Auburn ever trailed by five runs or more was when it trailed Long Beach State by five after four innings of play back in early March.
The loss is only Auburn's second this season in conference play, dropping its conference record to 9-2 and 36-5 overall. Tennessee wins its seventh conference game of the season, hitting four home runs in the process.
"I am sure there are certain levels of different emotions," Myers said. "You cannot give up on this team. We had the winning run on base, the tying run on second and the winning run on first. They battled back. There are some things that this team can do; we just came up a little short."
Being Auburn's fifth only loss this season, it is the team's fifth loss by three runs or less. Auburn's losses this season have been by a combined nine runs and the Tigers know that when playing from behind, there's no lead that's safe.
"I learned a long time ago with this team you cannot be surprised," Myers said. "Look at the number of runs we have scored with two outs this year. With two outs we can put a five spot up there real easy. We have done it before, we know we can, we believe we can. We just came up a little short."
For only the eighth time this season, it was Auburn's opponent that scored the game's first run. The Lady Vols got a solo home run from Gretchen Aucoin to take the early lead, but Auburn answered back with a solo home run of its own from Jade Rhodes in the second.
Rhodes now has 16 home runs this season, which makes her the new team leader and only two homers away from tying the single-season Auburn home run record. Tonight, Rhodes was 2-for-4 with two RBI, marking her eighth multi-hit game this season.
The Tigers took the lead in the third getting a lead-off single by Tiffany Howard and then an RBI double by Emily Carosone. Kasey Cooper made it three-straight hits to start the inning with her single to right-cente, bringing home Carosone easy to give the Orange and Blue the 3-1 lead.
That was the last drop of offense Auburn could muster for the next two innings when Gaffin was called from the bullpen to replace the starter, Aucoin and in turn, Tennessee went on to hit three more home runs, two of the three-run variety to retake the lead and make it an 8-3 game.
Auburn started to finally get on top of Gaffin in the sixth, getting a run back by way of the Tennessee error that put a runner on third. Morgan Estell brought that runner home with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-4, but Gaffin was still able to pick up her fifth victory of the year, finishing with five innings pitched and only allowing two runs on three hits.
"We knew coming in what she threw, we just did not execute our plan," Myers said. "We talk about intelligent hitting, we did not do that. You saw a little of that in the last inning when we were bringing the ball up. It is something that we have to do a better job of."
Auburn still has the chance to win the series tomorrow, first pitch slated with the Lady Vols at 3:30 p.m. The game will be televised on the SEC Network with Pam Ward and Cheri Kempf on the call.
For more information on Auburn softball, visit AuburnTigers.com, follow the team on Twitter @Auburn_Softball or follow them on Facebook at Facebook.com/AuburnSoftball.