Auburn won their eighth game out of the last nine with a season-high 16 hits in a 10-0 win over Coppin State Tuesday night to improve to 14-7 on the year.
Michael O'Neal earned his first win on the mound this season with six complete innings pitched while only allowing two hits and no runs.
"I learned a lot about Michael O'Neal today. I thought a little bit of it in the middle was on me and it probably has been up to this point," said head coach Sunny Golloway. "We've got to let him pitch in the middle of the zone and let the ball work more. I think he did a really good job. We turned the game back over to Blake (Austin) at a certain point and just let them go with it and when we did that he pitched better."
O'Neal had a quick 1-2-3 inning to start off the momentum for Auburn.
Auburn's offense followed with singles from Jordan Ebert and Damek Tomscha and then a well-executed RBI squeeze bunt hit scored Ebert for Auburn's first run in the bottom of the first.
Auburn's bats continued in the bottom of the second starting with singles from Connor Short and Sam Gillikin. With runners on the corners, Ebert completed Auburn's second successful RBI bunt. Later in the inning Ryan Tella hit an RBI single to score Dan Glevenyak and make it 3-0.
O'Neal kept it going on the mound with another 1-2-3 inning in the third.
The offense gave O'Neal another insurance run when Ebert hit a sacrifice fly RBI to score Damon Haecker, who hit a double before scoring Auburn's fourth run in the bottom of the third.
In the following inning, Haecker hit another sacrifice fly RBI for Auburn to score Tomscha and make it 5-0.
After walking two consecutive batters with only one out, O'Neal rallied by getting two consecutive groundouts to end the top of the fifth and keep his scoreless one-hitter.
Auburn continued their scoring trend of one run each inning in the bottom of the fifth when Ebert hit another RBI to score J.J. Shaffer, who reached on a base hit bunt and also stole second.
Auburn added two more runs with an RBI triple down the right field line by Daniel Robert to score Austin followed by another sacrifice fly RBI by Haecker to make it 8-0.
Trey Wingenter came on to relieve O'Neal in the seventh and kept it scoreless for the next two innings with two strikeouts and one hit allowed.
Auburn's ninth run came when a pitch hit Haecker with the bases-loaded in the bottom of the seventh. Their 10th run came in the eighth when an error brought Ebert home from third.
Rocky McCord came on to pitch in the ninth inning and kept the 10-0 shutout win alive by throwing three consecutive strikeouts to end the game despite throwing three straight walks to start the inning.
"I'm proud that we scored every inning," Golloway said. "I'm proud that there are no errors in the error column and I thought we pitched the ball really well today."
Auburn is back at Plainsman Park Wednesday at 3 p.m. for another game against Coppin State.
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