The No. 24 Tigers are coming off a series sweep against the No. 10 Florida Gators and will face the Mississippi Valley State University Devilettes this weekend at home on Jane B. Moore Field.
Auburn lost all three games against the Gators, but plan to shake off its defeat to continue the fight for the rest of the season.
"The biggest thing to remember here is that a loss doesn't necessarily mean a step backward," said junior infielder Morgan Murphy. "We're still a team of goals that we set out in the beginning of the season that we can obtain, so we look on to the next game. Our most important game is always the next one."
The Tigers are facing a confident MVSU team in a double header Saturday and will continue to play their best on the field.
"We always have to keep fighting and keeping digging to stay on the board and keep scoring and pushing runs across," said freshman pitcher Hilary Mavromat.
Although the Devilettes lost their last SEC game 5-1 against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, MVSU came back to sweep the Alabama State University Lady Hornets, giving them the SWAC Eastern Division title.
The Devilettes have a power hitter in catcher Nicole Burr, who hit five RBIs and a three-run homer against ASU.
Joining Burr is MVSU shortstop Diana Parada, who hit her first inside-the-park home run in the series sweep.
Devilette's pitcher Kim Spivey was recently named the SWAC Pitcher of the Week for the third time. Spivey has thrown for more than 120 strikeouts this season and has proven her stamina after throwing 200 pitches within a double header.
"Every win from this point on is huge," said head coach Tina Deese. "Hopefully we're playing for seeding, getting into the tournament. Each win helps us in the seeeding because the last thing we want to do is go against Florida into conference tournament."
Though Auburn struggled defensively against Florida, the Tigers still need to create more hits on the offensive side of the ball.
"We've got to find a way to put the ball in play and manufacture more runs and put more runs on the board," said junior infielder Lauren Guzman. "Just a couple aren't going to do it for us."
Auburn will host MVSU Saturday at noon.
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