The Auburn baseball team picked up their seventh win of the season 7-1 over No. 27 Georgia Tech behind a stellar performance from sophomore pitcher Keegan Thompson.
Thompson went seven innings had nine strikeouts, no walks, six hits and gave up one earned run, while the Tigers plated seven.
“Today I located a fastball,” Thompson said. “That’s what I’ve been struggling with the last two outings, and I had it today.”
Coach Sunny Golloway said he agreed Thompson’s fastball was a key to the victory, as well as hits that came at the right moment.
“Keegan’s fastball control makes our program better,” Golloway said. “And then we had timely hits tonight. We’ve had guys in scoring position a lot, there was one game against Radford where we sacrifice bunted four times, got guys in scoring positon and didn’t score any of them.”
The game started off slow for both teams. The first run of the game came when Anfernee Greer crossed home on a sacrifice fly from designated hitter Hunter Tackett. The Tigers would plate one more in the third, and two more in the fourth.
The next inning, Kyler Deese smacked a triple, the second hit of his career, bringing in two more runs to put the Tigers up six.
Thompson also spoke on the team’s ability to get hits when they needed them.
“We got timely hits today,” Thompson said. “Somebody got on base, we got them in. That’s what we struggled with before offensive wise.”
Auburn got one more run across in the fifth, and the defense finished the job from there.
Tech picked up their first and only run in the sixth inning.
“I understand it was a pretty big rivalry before,” Thompson said. “To have (Georgia Tech) come in and us win like we did is a pretty big confidence booster.”
Golloway said that for this team, confidence is as important as anything.
“We tell our guys all the time that this game is built on believing in yourself,” Golloway said. “Don’t lose confidence for the wrong reasons.”
The win moves the Tigers up to 7-2, heading into a matchup with Alabama A&M on Wednesday.
This weekend, Auburn will take on Jacksonville State on Friday, Feb. 27, and Sunday, March 1, with a game against No. 10 Oklahoma State on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 3 p.m.
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