May 10, 2018
By Greg Ostendorf
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. -- The first and sixth place teams in the SEC West are currently separated by three games with six league games remaining for each team. That means that No. 16 Auburn (13-11 SEC), who is one game behind Arkansas for first, can win the division or finish as low as sixth depending on how the final two weekends go.
Obviously, the goal is to win the West. It's always been the goal.
"People don't fail because they aim high and miss," Auburn coach Butch Thompson said after Tuesday's win over South Alabama. "It's because they aim low and hit.
"I want us to win a championship. Whether it's the West or whether it's the next step, a tournament, I want this program to win a championship. I think if you're a game out and if you're a competitor and you're a winner, I don't know why I would not set our team up to go for that."
"You come to Auburn to win," added Auburn first baseman Brendan Venter. "The coaching staff has done a great job. The players we have here are fantastic. It's been every bit of what I envisioned. It's fun. I'm ready for these last two weekend series, and we're going to try and pull it out."
Venter, in particular, has been a catalyst for this Auburn offense in recent weeks. The junior-college transfer has hit a home run in three straight games and is hitting .571 with three doubles, four home runs and eight RBI during a six-game hitting streak.
As a team, the Tigers are 9-3 in league play over the last month. They've won 12 of their last 15 games and seem to be getting hot at the right time.
However, it wasn't that long ago that Auburn was sitting at 4-8 in the SEC.
"We're just trying to play our best baseball now, and hopefully (we've) built some confidence back," Thompson said. "I know it's chronicled where we've won 11 of our last 13 and just did a run of 9-3 in the league, but I don't want to forget about the 4-8. I thought that's where we found our team. With three of our four coaches being new and half of our ball club being new, I thought the 4-8 allowed us to find ourselves."
Beginning Thursday night, the Tigers will open a three-game series on the road against an Ole Miss team that is also 13-11 in the SEC and also competing for a division title.
The stakes will be high, which means the crowd and the environment will be raucous when sophomore Davis Daniel takes the mound to start Thursday's game. However, that's nothing new for a guy who has started 14 games in the SEC coming in.
"It's going to be a blast," Daniel said. "I like pitching on the road. The SEC is fun. I kind of like the chirp. I kind of like people yelling at you. It adds to the environment and brings a little more to the table. I've seen a lot of games at Ole Miss on TV, the crazy student section, so it should be a lot of fun. I'm ready to go."
If Auburn can win the series in Oxford this weekend, it would go a long way in helping the Tigers achieve that goal of winning the SEC West for the first time since 2010. It would also significantly help their chances of potentially hosting an NCAA Regional at the end of the month.
At this point in the season, every game is critical.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf