ATLANTA, Ga. – The Auburn softball program continued its impressive fall exhibition productivity as the Tigers traveled to Atlanta and beat Georgia Tech.
Rather than playing a tradition seven-inning softball game, the two teams agreed to play as many innings as possible in a three-hour window on Thursday night. Play was ultimately stopped after nine innings with the Tigers ahead.
"I thought it was a very slow start with low energy. We were kind of just playing, but not playing to win," head coach Mickey Dean said. "But once we got down, then all the sudden, we had a little fire in us and started playing and executing much better."
Auburn fell behind in the bottom of the first, before that deficit was extended in the third and sixth innings, respectively. The Tigers finally got on the scoreboard with a two-run top of the seventh, before tying the game an inning later.
Georgia Tech re-took the lead with a one-run bottom of the eighth. However, Auburn responded with a three-run top of the ninth, while the Yellow Jackets only managed to plate one in their half of the inning before the game was called.
"Our pitching wasn't great, but it wasn't bad," Dean said. "It was really just inconsistent, but when we were on, we had really good innings."
On the night, the Auburn pitching staff recorded 11 strikeouts, including striking out the side in the bottom of the second and recording the game's final three outs via strikeout. The Tigers were also credited with 15 hits throughout the game.
"We had a lot of hits, but just didn't capitalize on scoring runs," Dean said. "I thought, after about the fourth inning, we started playing with a little bit more energy and I thought our young players did a good job of putting themselves in position to score runs. Our defense really kept us in the game."