MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Auburn came back form an early six-run deficit to win a wild midweek matchup against South Alabama, 13-12, Tuesday night at Riverwalk Stadium.
Bobby Peirce hit a one-out triple and came in to score on Mike Bello's RBI groundout to break a 12-12 with the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth.
"Bobby Pierce has probably put in more swings in the cage for the amount of at-bats he has had than anyone I've ever been around." assistant coach Gabe Gross said. "My heart just beats really loudly for him tonight because that's huge for him to come through in a moment where it seems like everything was quiet and dead for us."
Auburn's six-run comeback was the team's largest since overcoming a seven-run deficit against Florida A&M on Feb. 22, 2017.
"We had our backs against the wall pretty much the whole night," Gross added. "I thought they fought. They scrapped and never let go of the rope. At the end of the night, we found a way to overcome all of it."
After South Alabama (15-4) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first and extended the advantage to 6-0 through the top of the fourth, Auburn (15-6) came screaming back to take the lead with a seven-run fourth inning.
Garrett Farquhar and Blake Rambusch got the scoring started with back-to-back RBI singles, and Sonny DiChiara followed Kason Howell's walk with a two-RBI knock back up the middle. Brooks Carlson drove in Howell to cut the deficit to one, and Brody Moore gave the Tigers the advantage with a two-RBI double down the right-field line.
South Alabama answered with four runs in the top of the fifth to reclaim the lead, 10-7, but Auburn followed up its seven-run fourth with a five-run fifth to continue the back-and-forth affair.
Farquhar got the scoring started for the second straight inning with a solo home run to left, his second of the season, and started a stretch of eight straight Tigers to reach. Carlson, Cam Hill, Moore and Peirce turned in four straight RBI singles in the frame to reclaim the lead, 12-10.
Auburn sent 21 batters to the plate and scored a combined 12 runs on 10 hits in the fourth and fifth innings.
A leadoff hit batter in the seventh and leadoff error in the eighth came back to bite Auburn as South Alabama tied the game, 12-12, with a run in each frame. However, that set the stage for Peirce and Bello to combine for the aforementioned game-winning run in the eighth.
Blake Burkhalter (3-0, 3.60) allowed just the unearned run in the eighth and earned the win. He entered with the go-ahead run aboard in the seventh and stranded a pair of runners before ultimately pitching the final 2.2 innings with three strikeouts.
"We started out kind of sluggish, and I was just looking for my time to come in," Burkhalter said. "I really wanted to go out there and compete with my team.
"The guys battled hard tonight," Burkhalter added. "We battled as a team. Coming back there in the eighth inning to get a chance to win the game was really important for us."
Carlson led the Auburn offense with three hits while Rambusch, DiChiara, Moore, Perice and Farquhar added two hits apiece. Rambusch extended his team-best hit streak to 11 games with a leadoff single in the third and eventually collected his 11th multi-hit game of the season.
Auburn continues SEC play with its first true road games of the season, traveling to Bryan-College Station, Texas, for a three-game series against Texas A&M (13-7, 2-1 SEC) from Friday-Sunday.
Auburn defeats South Alabama in wild midweek affair
