Auburn’s baseball team continued to come through in the clutch in late innings as they defeated Jacksonville State 6-4, Friday, Feb. 27, at Plainsman Park.
A game-deciding catch in the ninth inning with two outs and the bases loaded is what sealed the Tigers eighth win of the season.
Three Gamecocks ran through home plate thinking they took a 7-6 lead in the top of the ninth after JSU’s Taylor Hawthorne hit a shot to right field that ended up in junior right fielder Jordan Ebert’s glove, but the umpire did not signal a catch.
“I try to stay out of the balls and strikes part of the baseball game, as you can tell, but I wasn’t going to be able to stay out of that part of the game right there,” said coach Sunny Golloway. “Off the barrel, you just don’t think that anyone is getting to that ball. For him to get to that ball is pretty special in itself.”
A few minutes later, officials called it a catch, JSU’s runs did not count and Auburn had won the ball game.
“I thought I got a really good jump on it,” Ebert said. “I thought Anfernee (Grier) might have called me off late and I just dove. I thought the umpire called safe so I just threw the ball in as fast as I could just in case. I probably should have just held on to the ball and ran it in, but in a situation like that I don’t want to let them get another one. Probably one of the coolest moments of my career here.”
Auburn led 6-2 heading into the ninth because of its rallys at the plate in the sixth and eighth innings.
Auburn scored three runs to take the lead in the sixth. Junior Cody Nulph hit in freshman Hunter Tackett to put the Tigers on the board and then sophomore Blake Logan hit a shot off the top of the left-field fence for another RBI double and to put the Tigers in their first lead of the day.
Auburn tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the eighth. Nulph hit a homerun over the green monster for his second homerun of the season. Sophomore Anfernee Grier continued his hot streak at the plate as he drove in a run with a double to go on top 5-2. Grier’s sixth double of the season extended his career-high hitting streak to 12 games. A sac bunt from Ebert brought Grier home. The suicide squeeze extended the lead 6-2.
Redshirt junior Justin Camp got the save for Auburn and sophomore Will Thompson picked up the win. The junior college transfer did not allow a hit in one and one/third innings.
Senior Rocky McCord will take the mound Saturday, Feb. 28, as Auburn squares off with the 10th-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys at Plainsman Park.
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