AUBURN, Ala. – In front of a crowd of 1,415, Auburn softball opened its home slate at Jane B. Moore Field, dropping a midweek decision to Kennesaw State Thursday night.
The Owls took advantage of a trio of Tiger errors to plate three unearned runs, to secure a 4-1 win.
Senior Ashlee Swindle (2-3) suffered the loss in the circle. Three of the four runs the right-hander allowed were unearned. She surrendered seven hits over 4.1 innings with a pair of strikeouts.
Auburn brought the tying run to the plate in the top of the seventh after a two-out rally with two key pinch-hit at-bats. Senior Alyssa Rivera knocked her first hit of the season, a single to left, while freshman Maia Engelkes drew aa hit by pitch. An infield grounder silenced the comeback attempt.
Senior Justus Perry drove in Auburn's lone run with a RBI single in the bottom of the second.
SCORING RECAP
Top 1
Hannah Thompson lead off the contest with an infield single for the Owls and would move to third courtesy of a sacrifice bunt and groundout. The Owls opened the scoring in the contest with help of an Auburn fielding miscue at shortstop.
Kennesaw State 1, Auburn 0
Bottom 2
Abby Tissier laid down a bunt to give the Tigers a baserunner with one away. Pinch runner Jadia Jones stole second and came home on a bloop single up the middle from Justus Perry. The RBI was Perry's second of the season and the first earned run allowed by Kennesaw State this season.
Auburn 1, Kennesaw State 1
Top 5
The Owls leadoff hitter reached for the second straight inning as Katie Greep went through the left side to start the frame. Faith Alexander followed Greep with another single through the left side to give the Owls a runner in scoring position. A batter later, Brea Dickey collected her second hit of the game to plate Alexander and put KSU back on top. Another Tigers miscue in the field plated KSU second run of the inning, and Jade Lee grounded out to first to push another run across for the Owls.
Kennesaw State 4, Auburn 1
WHAT THEY SAID
Head Coach Mickey Dean
"We have to get better. This game is played by people and individuals, and we have to go out and perform. We have to coach well. We didn't do much of anything right tonight."
UP NEXT
Auburn welcomes Alabama State and UNCW for the first of two home tournaments. The Tigers will face UNCW on Friday at 2:30 p.m. CT before taking on Alabama State at 5 p.m. CT to open the Plainsman Invitational.