After only a few hits in the Capital City Classic Wednesday March 5, Auburn got the bats going early Friday night in a 9-5 win over Mercer.
"Our guys did a really good job of getting in the box with an attitude and driving the ball tonight," said Auburn head coach Sunny Golloway.
Damek Tomscha hit his second home run of the year in the first inning with a shot clearing the Green Monster in left to take the 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the second, Blake Logan started a rally with a line drive hit to left field followed by another single by Keegan Thompson. Jordan Ebert crushed a triple to score both runners on base. Anfernee Grier pulled off a suicide squeeze bunt to score Ebert from third and make it 4-0.
Starting pitcher Dillon Ortman improved his record to 3-1 on the mound while pitching 7.2 innings with six strikeouts.
"We had a system involved in throwing everything away and making them hit my pitch," Ortman said. "The whole team came out swinging tonight. To help a pitcher out like that is huge."
Through Ortman's first four innings he only allowed one hit on three strikeouts and no runs. Then, in the top of the fifth, Mercer hit a single, double and got on base with a walk to load up the bases.
But with two outs Ortman successfully got out of the inning with a groundout to third base, leaving all three Mercer runners stranded.
In the sixth and seventh inning, Ortman pitched consecutive 1-2-3 innings.
Auburn manufactured their fifth run in the bottom of the fifth when Damon Haecker hit a sacrifice fly RBI to score Ebert, who reached on a base hit and also stole third base.
In the bottom of the sixth, Blake Austin hit a leadoff double with the first pitch that he saw. Ryan Tella converted on a sacrifice bunt to advance Austin to third and Logan drove him home with an RBI single to increase Auburn's lead to 6-0.
Ebert led off the seventh with an infield single, and Grier advanced him to third with a double. Tomscha then hit an RBI single to score Ebert. After a pitch hit Austin to make it bases-loaded, Tella hit a fielder's choice RBI. Dan Glevenyak hit an RBI single to score Tomscha and make it 9-0.
Ortman's two earned runs came in the top of eighth. Mercer hit a single and double and then hit back-to-back RBIs to make it 9-2.
"He pitched outstanding," Golloway said. "I told Dillon when I went to the mound to not worry about those two runs. That's probably more on us with the pitch calling and just trying to force the contact to minimize the pitch count."
Trey Wingenter replaced Ortman but only faced one batter while allowing one hit. LHP Daniel Koger then took the mound and threw a bases-loaded walk to bring in Mercer's third run. But Koger bounced back with a strikeout to end the eighth inning.
In the ninth, Koger allowed a 2-run homer to Mercer's Chesney Young but got the final three outs for Auburn to win 9-5.
With tonight's win Auburn improves to 7-6 and Mercer goes to 12-3 on the season. Game two of the series is tomorrow at 3 p.m. at Plainsman Park.
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