The No. 24 Auburn Tigers (15-8, 1-5 SEC) earned its first SEC win of the season on Saturday by taking down the nation’s top team.
Trailing No. 1 Arkansas (19-3, 5-1 SEC) 5-1 heading to the bottom of the 6th inning, the Tigers rattled off six runs in the frame to go ahead, 7-5. Solid pitching over the final two innings, plus an insurance run in the 8th inning were enough to lift Auburn to an 8-6 win over the Razorbacks on Saturday afternoon at Plainsman Park in Auburn.
A record crowd of 5,087 fans watched the Tigers earn the win. A big crowd, plus great effort, led to the win says head coach [autotag]Butch Thompson[/autotag].
“This is a group of guys that have done everything we have asked them to do the right way,” Thompson said postgame. “For us to come out being down 0-2 in a series at home and have more fans than we’ve ever had in the park’s history show up is pretty moving. For me personally it’s a big deal, and I know it means a lot to these players, but that’s Auburn. That’s the best version of us, and the fans were huge to provide some momentum in the ballpark today.”
The Tigers entered Saturday hoping to avoid a second-straight sweep to open SEC play. After three innings of scoreless play, Arkansas broke through in the 4th inning with a three-run home run and an RBI double to jump ahead, 4-0. [autotag]Cooper McMurray[/autotag] responded by sending Ike Irish home on an RBI single to cut the Razorbacks’ lead to 4-1.
Arkansas’ Kendall Diggs, who scored a run in the 4th inning, sent another run across in the top half of the 6th inning to extend the deficit to 5-1. In danger of letting the game get away from them, Auburn responded by scoring six runs in the bottom frame to take the lead.
[autotag]Mason Maners[/autotag] led off the inning with a home run, which sent Razorbacks pitching into a downward spiral. The next five batters would reach base with zero outs in the inning, which allowed two runs to score. The big blow of the inning came off the bat of McMurray, who crushed a three-run blast to push Auburn ahead, 7-5.
Over the next three innings, [autotag]Parker Carlson[/autotag] and [autotag]Will Cannon[/autotag] combined to allow just one earned run with three strikeouts to limit Arkansas’ bats. Irish hit a solo home run in the 8th inning to deliver the final blow, and securing an Auburn win.
Auburn recorded 10 hits on the day, with McMurray, Irish, Maners, and [autotag]Chris Stanfield[/autotag] leading the way with two hits each. McMurray drove home four runs while Irish scored two. On the mound, Joseph Gonzalez allowed four earned runs on five hits in 3 2/3 innings in his first SEC start of the season. Carlson earned the win by tossing a three-hit, one-run effort in 1 2/3 innings of relief. Cannon slammed the door by striking out two batters without allowing a hit over the final two innings to grab the save.
Auburn will host Jax State for a midweek tilt on Tuesday in an effort to prepare them for another tough road test next weekend at Texas A&M. The Tigers and Gamecocks will battle at 6 p.m. CT on Tuesday at Plainsman Park.
| Runs | Hits | Errors | LOB | |
| No. 1 Arkansas | 6 | 10 | 1 | 11 |
| No. 24 Auburn | 8 | 10 | 0 | 8 |
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