In the biggest comeback of the Tigers' career, Auburn triumphed over Tennessee to claim the SEC Championship title for the first time in program history.
It didn’t take long for the Tigers to grab their first run after Tiffany Howard’s first base hit for the tournament stretched her out to third base off of two wild pitches from Tennessee’s Rainey Gaffin. Kasey Cooper’s sacrifice grounder to second then allowed Howard to plate easily, and the Tigers snatched the early advantage.
An easy 1-2-3 inning for the defense didn’t waste any time for the Tigers and they stepped up to the box looking to bring in more runs.
Morgan Estell then swung for a solid double that drilled to the outfield. After a walk for Haley Fagan, Jade Rhodes stepped to the plate with a runner on each corner and with a dropped ball at third, loaded the bases. Another walk on offense off of Gaffin then brought in another run for the Tigers, scoring Estell.
The run prompted a pitching change for Tennessee to Erin Gabriel and moved Gaffin to left field. Emily Carosone came up with the base hit to then bring in Fagan for the third Tigers run.
On defense, Lexi Davis had no trouble keeping the Vols from hitting base when she pitched three consecutive strikeouts on Tennessee.
But this same rock solid defense wouldn’t be able to hold the Vols off for too long as the Tigers allowed Tennessee to plate a run off Taylor Koening’s single up the middle to start what became a four run rally over the next two innings for the Vols to take the lead 4-3.
The bottom of the fifth didn’t give anything to the Tigers' offense as they stayed trailing by one.
Leading off into the sixth, Rachael Walters took the mound to relieve Davis and kept the Vols quiet, but the Tigers shared the same fate at bat, unable to plate any more runs.
Meghan Gregg then found the perfect pitch and sailed the Vol’s first home run of the game to push the score to a two-run difference in Tennessee’s favor.
But the game wasn’t over just yet.
Headed into the bottom of the seventh, Carosone led the offense with a single to center field followed by a near home run far into right field by Cooper. All it took was a sacrifice grounder from Branndi Melero to score Carosone for the tie at 5-5.
Soon after, Tennessee’s left fielder was set to catch Carlee Wallace’s fly ball, but dropped it to score Cooper, and the Tigers snagged the lead back.
In perhaps the biggest turn of events this season, and for the first time in SEC Championship history since 2011, the game went for two extra innings to break the tie for the win, and in the bottom of the ninth, it was a slammed hit up left field from Wallace to snatch the lead and give Auburn its first SEC Championship title.
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