JACKSONVILLE, Ala. – Lucas Steele hit a pinch-hit home run with two outs in the ninth inning to help lift No. 6 Auburn past Jacksonville State, 4-3, Tuesday night at Jim Case Stadium.
The win marked Auburn’s eighth one-run win of the season and marked the team’s third win when trialing or tied after eight innings.
“This is a group of confidence and resiliency, and they just hang in there,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “To Jacksonville State’s credit, they just kept pitching us and kept pitching us, and we had trouble putting things together. But Christian Chatterton, what a great outing. Usually if you give up two hits you feel pretty good about it, but we were in a barn burner all night and wound up getting another one-run win.”
Making his second straight midweek start, freshman Christian Chatterton retired the first 18 Gamecocks he faced in the game and racked up his second-highest strikeout total of the season with eight.
“Lucas Steele stepping up there with two outs and the pinch hit and the dramatics,” Thompson said. “They had done one to us in the half inning before, and Steele comes back and puts us on top.”
With his last at-bat coming a week ago at Georgia Tech, Steele stepped to the plate as a pinch hitter and pulled a two-out, two-strike pitch over the fence in right field to give the Tigers the go-ahead run in the ninth inning.
“You just have to stay locked in mentally because obviously you’re not doing too much physically,” Steele said. “You have to stay locked in mentally throughout the whole game. It is what it is. You just get in the box and do the same thing you’ve done over and over, and that’s just hit.”
Ben Schorr (1-0) went back to the mound in the ninth inning after striking out the two hitters he faced to end the eighth and retired Jacksonville State in order with a pair of strikeouts to earn his first win of the season. The senior righty retired all five batters he faced with a career-high four strikeouts.
“I really was just trying to fill it up and give our guys a chance to go get it right there, and obviously Steele came through in a big moment for us,” Schorr said. “Credit to our guys. We have a very resilient group, and I think that shows.”
With Chatterton retiring the first nine batters he faced on 33 pitches, Auburn (27-10) collected six hits in the fourth, including five straight singles, to take a 3-0 lead. Bub Terrell drove in the first run with a screaming line drive back where it came from, and Eric Guevara dropped one into no-man’s land in center field to double the lead. Two batters later, Chase Fralick recorded the fifth straight hit and scored Terrell to make it 3-0.
Chatterton racked up six strikeouts in a span of 10 batters from the start of the third inning through the first out of the sixth. Terrell robbed what would’ve been a leadoff home run to start the bottom of the fifth inning, helping keep Chatterton’s perfect game intact through five, and Cade Belyeu made a diving catch toward the gap in left center to record the last out of the sixth.
After the freshman retired the first 18 batters, Jacksonville State leadoff hitter Drew Collins started the seventh inning with an infield single to break up the perfect game. An error put two runners aboard and brought the tying run to the plate, and fellow freshman Jackson Sanders entered to relieve Chatterton. The Gamecocks (21-16) scored a pair of unearned runs on a fielder’s choice and wild pitch later in the inning and reloaded the bases with a walk. However, Jett Johnston buckled down with a strikeout on a full-count pitch to end the inning and preserve a one-run lead.
Terrell hit a two-out double in the top of the eighth, his second hit of the game, but was left stranded, and Jacksonville State tied the game with a one-out homer in the bottom of the inning.
Fralick drew a one-out walk to put the potential go-ahead run aboard in the ninth, but pinch runner Cole Edwards was caught stealing for the second out with Steele at the plate. Two pitches later, Steele smacked his fourth home run of the season to reclaim the lead.
Offensively, Auburn outhit Jacksonville State 9-2 with McMurray and Terrell turning in multi-hit efforts.
The Tigers continue Southeastern Conference play at No. 1 Texas (29-5, 13-2 SEC) Thursday through Saturday in Austin.