In the second game of Auburn’s Snowmaha Classic, the Tigers took down the visiting No. 10 Oklahoma State Cowboys, 9-2, behind a barrage of hits and stellar pitching performances from Rocky McCord and Cole Lipscomb.
Auburn (9-2) collected 17 hits on the night, the most the Tigers have gotten since a May 2012 game against Arkansas.
“(This win) was definitely a confidence booster for us,” said outfielder Anfernee Grier. “It shows we can hang with the elite programs in the country.”
Grier went 3-for-5, extending his hitting streak to 13 and raising his season average to .513 in the process.
Cole Lipscomb, who came on in relief for Rocky McCord in the fifth following an injury, threw 4.2 scoreless innings to pick up the win.
Several factors, some outside the playing field, led to the possibility of a possible resume-boosting win for the Tigers, and head coach Sunny Golloway didn’t underestimate the magnitude of a win against a top-10 team.
“We realize it’s early in the year, and it’s just one game,” said Golloway. “But hopefully it will be a game that will help us down the road if we continue to get better.”
The game had meant even more to pitching coach Tom Holliday, whose son Josh is the head coach for Oklahoma State. His other son Matt—of the St. Louis Cardinals—sent a special message prior to the game on the video board to his brother and father, but coach Holliday insists the game was nothing but business.
“I’ve watched (Josh’s) teams, and they’re good hitting teams,” Holliday said. “They hit the fastball good, and we put two breaking-ball pitchers on the mound, so you know I was trying to win. I wasn’t conceding anything.”
After the first few innings, however, the game itself had little drama.
Oklahoma State drew first blood in the third inning with a single off of McCord, but Auburn struck right back the next inning. Hunter Tackett homered into right field to give Auburn a 2-1 lead that the Tigers never relinquished.
After the Cowboys intentionally walked Jordan Ebert to load the bases in the fifth, Oklahoma State called for what would end up being the second of its five pitchers on the day. By the time the inning was over, Auburn had tacked on two more runs.
Blake Logan hit a sacrifice fly that scored Kyler Deese and JJ Shaffer hit a hard grounder to third, which scored Grier, but Ebert was tagged out at home to end the inning.
The Tigers kept piling on the runs in the sixth; scoring a run when Deese forced an error at shortstop to score Cody Nulph, and another when Damon Haecker drove in Grier on a single, putting Auburn ahead 6-2.
In the seventh inning, Auburn scored two runs for the fourth consecutive inning, and led 8-2 following a fielder’s choice and a wild pitch.
Shaffer added another run in the eighth to make it 9-2, and Lipscomb sat three Cowboys down in order to end the game and pick up the win.
“I recognize we’re getting a lot of breaks right now,” Golloway said. “We got punched tonight, and we punched right back.”
With the victory, Auburn has now won seven consecutive games, their longest winning streak since 2009, when they reeled off 11 straight.
The Tigers will be back in action Sunday afternoon to close out the weekend against Jacksonville State, who they already defeated 6-4 on Friday.
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