Coming off of their third straight SEC series loss and a midweek loss to Samford, Auburn baseball bounced back Saturday by winning game one over No. 11 South Carolina 4-2, but they lost their lead in the top of the ninth in their game two 3-2 loss.
"We played great for 17 innings today," head coach Sunny Golloway said. "Until the bottom of the eighth [of game two] we played really good today."
GAME ONE:
Auburn extended South Carolina's losing streak to five games by winning game one of the series 4-2, thanks to a four run bottom of the first inning from Auburn's offense.
Dillon Ortman improved to 7-2 after pitching his second complete game of the season.
USC's Jordan Montgomery only allowed four hits in eight innings pitched but he goes to 5-3 on the season after today's loss.
Auburn's big first inning began with a leadoff walk and a fielder's choice where both runners ended up being safe. Jordan Ebert then loaded up the bases for Auburn after a base hit bunt.
Damek Tomscha hit a sacrifice RBI to bring in Auburn's first run.
Then on the first pitch he saw, Blake Austin hit a 3-run home run over the Green Monster in left, which was Auburn's first home run in 13 games. Montgomery managed to get the next two outs to keep the damage at four runs.
After that first inning, Montgomery went on to only allow two more hits and no runs. But USC's offense struggled against Ortman for most of the game.
USC's first run came in the top of the third when Elliott Caldwell hit a sacrifice fly RBI to make it 4-1.
USC's Tanner English led off the sixth with a double then Caldwell hit his second RBI of the game with a single that scored English. Ortman went on to get the next three outs to keep the score at 4-2.
With USC's top of the order due up in the ninth, they led off with a single. After a fly out to left, Kyle Martin hit a one-out single but that was all the offense USC would manufacture as Ortman got the next two hitters out to clinch his complete game win.
GAME TWO:
It looked as if Auburn was going to upset No. 11 USC again to earn their first SEC series victory in four weekends, but the Gamecocks came from behind with a two-run top of the ninth inning to take the lead and avoid the series loss.
For the second game of the day all of Auburn's runs came out of one inning. This time Auburn took the early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth with back-to-back RBI singles from Ryan Tella and Dan Glevenyak.
That 2-0 score remained the same until the seventh inning.
Besides one RBI single in the top of the seventh, Keegan Thompson shut down the Gamecocks for eight complete innings.
Auburn missed plenty of opportunities in the bottom of the eighth when they loaded up the bases with no outs, but ended up not bringing a run home.
South Carolina's Cody Mincey only pitched that eighth inning but it was enough for him to earn the win as he was able to leave all three Auburn runners stranded while throwing two strikeouts and forcing a fly out.
"Bases loaded nobody out," Golloway said. "3-2 count we swing at a ball over our head and the other one was probably a ball too swinging on a 3-2 count on a ball that was up and away."
Thompson's pitch count was too high after his 1-2-3 eighth inning so Jay Wade came on in relief to start the ninth. Wade allowed a leadoff single, walk and an RBI double to tie the game before Trey Cochran-Gill pitched the rest of the ninth. Cochran-Gill then intentionally walked the bases before allowing the go-ahead RBI single for USC to take the 3-2 lead.
USC turned to their shutdown closer Joel Seddon to earn the save, which he got in order.
The deciding game three will be back at Plainsman Park at 1 p.m. tomorrow, where Auburn will look to win their first SEC series since winning over Tennessee four weekends ago.
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