Auburn (18-12, 3-7 SEC) baseball lost its first of a three-game SEC series 10-7 this weekend after a back and forth battle with the Arkansas Razorbacks (15-4, 4-6 SEC) Friday, April 3, at Plainsman Park.
“It’s just a tough loss for Friday night,” said coach Sunny Golloway. “ There’s no doubt. Especially when you come out and put a big five spot up.”
Sophomore starting pitcher Cole Lipscomb took the loss allowing seven hits, four earned runs, no walks and three strikeouts through 5.2 innings.
“Cole was just up in the zone,” Golloway said. “That’s why he got hit hard. Cole’s not recording many strikeouts. Something is going on. I think it is because he was up in the zone and it was easy for them to put the ball into play.”
Outfielder Anfernee Grier and shortstop Cody Nulph made their 30th start in the series opener.
The Razorbacks took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning to get on the board first after sophomore Clark Eagan drove in two runs with a double to right-center.
Auburn came back with a big third inning, scoring five runs on five hits.
The rally started when catcher Blake Logan drove in two runs to tie the game 2-2 with a double to left field after the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs.
Leaving two Tigers in scoring position after Logan’s shot, Daniel Robert hit a sac fly to left field to score Damon Haecker to put the Tigers up one.
The Tigers came out of the inning scoring two more times after Kyer Deese hit a shot up the middle to bring Logan across the plate and a sac groundout scored Melvin Gray.
The game went downhill for Auburn after the Razorbacks hit back-to-back homeruns and scored four runs on five hits in the sixth inning.
Outfielders senior Joe Serrano and sophomore Andrew Benintendi led things off for with solo homeruns to close the gap.
“You got to give them credit for the two solo homeruns,” Golloway said. “Those were really well hit balls.”
Auburn put in reliever Trey Wingenter soon after. Wingenter finished the game allowing five hits, two earned runs, one walk and two strikeouts through 2.2 innings.
“I thought Trey (Wingenter) was just out of control a little bit,” Golloway said. “We got to get control of the wild pitches.
The junior gave up back-to-back RBI singles to improve Arkansas’ lead to 6-5.
The Tigers took advantage of the walks given to them by Arkansas’ reliever Zach Jackson in the bottom of the seventh inning.
After Jackson walked the bases loaded, shortstop Cody Nulph hit an RBI single to right field to tie things up at 6-6 and leave the bases loaded for Schaffer. Logan scored on the play.
Jackson walked Austin Murphy to bring Daniel Robert across the plate and give the Tigers the lead.
Arkansas battled back and showed some mental toughness with an infield-scoring single to even things up once again in the top of the eighth inning.
In the ninth, Arkansas’ Clark Eagan knocked a double to left-center to put him and Tucker Pennell in scoring position before Auburn made its second pitching change and put in junior right-hander Justin Camp, who didn’t last long.
After Joe Serrano hit a two-run single up the middle to improve Arkansas’ lead to 9-7, the Tigers put in sophomore left-hander Izaac Yarbrough, but the Razorbacks weren’t quite finished at the plate.
Andrew Benintendi hit a sac fly to score Serrano. The Razorbacks scored three runs on three hits in the last inning.
Auburn will try to even things up in the series with Arkansas Saturday, April at 6 p.m. at Plainsman Park.
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