They say hitting is contagious, but an epidemic swept through Auburn's baseball team in the eighth inning against Jacksonville State Tuesday, May 7 as the Tigers scored 12 runs after trailing 8-0.
It looked as if Auburn was about to be embarrassingly shutout before its 12-run eighth gave them the lead and the win. Shortstop Dan Glevenyak hit two three-run homeruns in the inning, giving him his fourth homerun in three games.
"This is a special, special night for us," Head Coach John Pawlowski said. "We were not a very good baseball team for a major part of the night but fortunately for us, the will to win and they just kept battling and grinding out at-bat after at-bat. What an inning. I am going to remember this for a long, long time."
The 12 runs came off of nine hits and one error that turned the eight run deficit into a 12-8 lead while only giving one out. Jacksonville State cycled through four pitchers in the inning before Bradley Raulston got the final two outs for the Gamecocks.
"That was an unbelievable inning. We were trying to get people motivated, get people excited in the dugout. The next thing you know we get a couple of base hits and the whole momentum and mindset in our dugout changed," Pawlowski said. "This game is clearly about momentum and that inning we were clearly as good as we have been in a long time."
Glevenyak led the team with six RBI's followed by Cullen Wacker and Damek Tomscha with two each.
"I got more focused in the box and calmed myself down," Glevenyak said. "I had a nine-pitch at bat, I fouled pitches off, and then I got a good pitch to hit and put a simple swing on it and it went out."
Alabama State took the lead in the third inning after scoring four runs and continued to build their lead off of their hot bats against Auburn pitching. Dillon Ortman started for the Tigers and allowed four runs on three hits and gave up four walks.
Trey Cochran-Gill closed for the Tigers and kept the Gamecocks scoreless in the final two innings of play and recorded two strikeouts.
The comeback was the Tiger's largest since May 8, 2012 when they trailed Mississippi State 9-0 and won the game 16-14. Auburn improved to 28-19 on the season and will play Samford at home Wednesday, May 8, at 6 p.m.
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