Auburn baseball’s most recent series with USC began in an unforeseen fashion as the series that was originally planned to be played in Los Angeles had to be moved to Auburn due to inclement weather in Southern California.
It would only make sense for the series to have a bizarre finale.
In Sunday’s closer, USC jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the 1st inning before Auburn rattled off eight unanswered runs to take an 8-4 lead into the 4th inning before the Trojans tied the game again in the 5th.
The Tigers would then gain another comfortable lead on a [autotag]Justin Kirby[/autotag] grand slam in the 5th inning. His second home run of the day pushed Auburn to a 12-8 advantage. USC tied the game again over the next three innings, which set up an entertaining final inning.
USC’s Connor Clift appeared to send the winning run home in the bottom of the 9th on a base hit to left field that sent Carson Wells home from 2nd base. However, Auburn appealed the decision, stating that Wells never touched the plate. After a brief officiating conference, it was determined that Wells, in fact, did not touch home plate, thus wiping the run off the scoreboard.
Due to the Sunday travel rule, the series finale ended in a 12-12 tie, which put a cap on a wild, yet amusing series where Auburn won two games.
“A lot of strengths in our ball club to not lose a game this weekend in a great series, but something is definitely unsettling,” head coach Butch Thompson said after Sunday’s game.
Auburn did take care of business by winning two out of three over another power five club in USC. A four-run 4th inning in Friday’s game propelled the Tigers to a 5-3 series-opening win, and a solid return punch in Saturday’s game gave Auburn the 12-2 series-clinching win. After trailing 3-0 through three innings, the Tigers scored eight unanswered runs over the following three innings to take control of the game.
Auburn closes the week by going 3-0-1, which improves their record to 5-1-1 on the young season. Here is a look back at this weekend’s top performers from the USC series at Plainsman Park.