AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn fell short against No. 1 Ole Miss, dropping its Southeastern Conference opener against the Rebels, 13-6, Thursday night at Plainsman Park.
"We kept competing with our at-bats. We both had 14 hits," head coach Butch Thompson said. "We just have to play cleaner baseball to beat the number one team in America."
Only six of Ole Miss' runs were earned and 10 were scored in innings extended by runners reaching on a wild pitch, passed ball or error.
Ole Miss (14-3, 1-0 SEC) began the scoring in the first inning with a leadoff home run. However, Auburn starter Mason Barnett answered with two strikeouts. Jake Wyandt threw out Peyton Chatagnier's attempt to steal third for the second out of the inning.
Auburn (13-5, 0-1 SEC) quickly battled back in the first, starting with a leadoff single by Blake Rambusch that continued an eight-game hitting streak. Sonny DiChiara followed with a two-run home run, his sixth of the season, to give Auburn the 2-1 lead.
Scoring continued for both teams in the second inning, starting with two runs for the Rebels off a single and a two-run home run.
Brody Moore and Ryan Dyal had back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the inning, and a sacrifice bunt from Wyandt moved both into scoring position. Rambusch brought both in with a two-RBI double, marking his eighth multi-hit game of the season and tying the score, 4-4.
Ole Miss added a run with an RBI double in the third and tacked on two more on a solo homer and an unearned run off a fielding error in the fourth, extending the lead to 7-4.
Lefty Carson Skipper entered in relief of Barnett to start the fourth inning, recording the first scoreless inning for the Rebels in the fifth and ultimately throwing 2.2 innings.
Ole Miss was able to add to its lead with six runs in the sixth to make it a 13-4 ballgame, but all the Rebels runs were unearned after a two-out error extended the frame.
"We matched. We were hanging in there," Thompson added. "That sixth inning was the whole ballgame. Those five errors were tough to see unravel right there."
Dyal hit his fourth home run of the season with one out in the sixth. The game marks Dyal's sixth multi-hit game of the season, including his fourth in the last seven. Later in the inning, Mason Land and Kason Howell followed with a pair of singles, and DiChiara drove in Land with an RBI single to cap off the scoring in the contest.
Right-hander Carson Swilling pitched a season-high 3.1 scoreless innings with four strikeouts and faced just two batters over the minimum.
"Swilling had the most survivable fastball of the evening," Thompson said. "I thought his tempo was tremendous. He really seemed to get things going."
Auburn will be back in Plainsman Park for game two of the series against Ole Miss tomorrow at 6 p.m. CT.