'A great trait of perseverance': Resilient Tigers one win from Omaha

'A great trait of perseverance': Resilient Tigers one win from Omaha'A great trait of perseverance': Resilient Tigers one win from Omaha
Cat Wofford/Auburn Athletics

Edouard Julien

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Still in uniform, his Chick-fil-A postgame meal in hand, Edouard Julien entered the elevator in Auburn's team hotel late Saturday afternoon.

Like the Auburn baseball team, Julien was going up.

His three-run homer in the ninth culminated Auburn's late-inning explosion – nine runs in the last two innings – turning a 5-2 deficit into an 11-7 victory in the opening game of the Chapel Hill Super Regional.

"There's a resiliency with the bunch," Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. "This group has come together. Whether North Carolina wins these next two games or Auburn finds a way to win one, these guys have been connected. These guys are playing for one another. These guys are having fun playing."

Auburn overcame a three-run deficit in the eighth inning by scoring five runs, including three on Rankin Woley's bases-loaded double that came within inches of being a grand slam.

"A pretty fun swing," Woley said.

Julien joined the party in the ninth with his ninth home run, tying Will Holland and Steven Williams for the team lead.

It was Williams, the MVP of last week's Atlanta Regional, who delivered another clutch homer, pulling the Tigers within a run at 3-2 in the top of the fifth.

The Tar Heels responded with a pair of runs to restore their three-run lead going to the eighth, but the Tigers didn't flinch.

"There's no panic in our team," said Conor Davis, who doubled twice and drove in Auburn's first run in the eighth. "We believe we can hang in to every game. We can be down five or six runs in the ninth and still think we're right there, a hit or two away."

 "When they get behind, they're just not rolling over," Thompson said. "I think it's a great trait of perseverance."

Thompson pointed to Williams as an example of what can happen when players continue to battle in the face of adversity.

"Steven Williams' home run last week in that second game, against Georgia Tech, was a year of perseverance," Thompson said. "Of a ball last year in a super regional bouncing off his glove and going over the fence, and us being the last team not to qualify for Omaha.

"Once you start seeing examples of perseverance, and sometimes it takes a year to manifest itself, then this experience starts playing out."

Two years ago in Tallahassee, the Tigers were one pitch away from reaching a super regional. Last year in Gainesville, Auburn came within one run of advancing to the College World Series.

This year, despite injuries that dramatically altered Auburn's pitching plans, the Tigers will return to Boshamer Stadium Sunday needing one more victory to make it Omaha.

"If you really want to win, you have to understand what's important now, and the next pitch, and in this moment," Thompson said, sharing with reporters the postgame message he delivered to his team. "We've got to let stuff go.

"What will be important tomorrow is try to focus one pitch at a time. If something happens, and it probably will at some point in the contest tomorrow, can we let it go? And just get right back on what's important now."

Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer