The Auburn baseball team defeated the Mississippi State Bulldogs 12-10 Sunday afternoon in Starkville to make their record 20-10 overall and 6-6 in the Southeastern Conference.
The Tigers were down by six runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Auburn answered with 11 runs, scoring six runs in the fifth, two in the seventh and three in the eighth to claim its first series win at Mississippi State since 2003.
"We were down 8-2 early, and it looked like we didn't have anything going, and we were playing poor baseball," said Auburn head coach John Pawlowski. "We took the momentum in the middle part of the game, and this was a good win for us, especially on the road."
Tony Caldwell finished the game 2-for-3 with a walk, three runs scored and four RBI.
He hit the fourth home run of the five runs scored in the fifth and batted two runs in the seventh.
"This team has great character," Caldwell said. "We are going to come back, and we are never down. Games are never over until the last inning."
Bradley Hendrix had a big day as well.
The sophomore pitched the final four innings. He allowed one run, but struck out two Bulldogs at the beginning of the ninth.
"I used all of my pitches more today," Hendrix said. "I wanted to keep them off balance instead of relying on one pitch, and it really worked out for me. We stress keeping the momentum in our dugout. Once we score and get ahead, we need to get out there, get them out and get us back in the dugout so we can get some more runs."
The third inning started with Connor Powers and Ryan Duffy hitting back-to-back singles, and Scott DeLoach hit to load the bases.
A single by Russ Sneed tied the game at 2-2, and a RBI by Butler gave Mississippi State the one-run lead.
Ryan Powers hit a double to score and put two runners on base making the score 4-2.
Grant Hogue hit a ball up the middle to score two and give Mississippi State the four-run lead.
Auburn started its five run comeback in the top of the fifth. Casey McElroy scored his fourth home run this season, and Trent Mummey hit his 12th of the year.
Jared Wesson blasted his 13th run, and Caldwell hit his fifth of the year. This is the second four home run inning Auburn has had this season.
"The guys got some balls up in the zone and the wind was really howling out today," Pawlowski said. "They got some balls that they could handle and drove some balls out of here."
Auburn returns to the action at Plainsman Park for five straight home games starting Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Georgia State.
Auburn will then play Bethune-Cookman Wednesday at 6 p.m. in a game to replace the snowed out series against Florida State earlier in the season.
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