After suffering a run-rule defeat at the hands of No. 8 Kentucky on Friday night, No. 18 Auburn split a pair of weekend games against the Wildcats. The Tigers’ record stands at 27-4, with a 6-3 mark in SEC play.
Saturday, March 26
Looking to even the series on Saturday, Auburn set the tone early with three runs in the first inning. The Tigers never looked back, earning a 6-3 win to set up a decisive third game on Sunday.
"When this team is comfortable on the field, they are fun to watch," said Auburn head coach Mickey Dean. "We're young. We're not always going to be pretty, but we are going to be beautiful for you at the end."
Auburn started Maddie Penta on the mound. Penta would pitch a complete game, allowing seven hits and just three runs, while striking out four Wildcats en-route to her 17th win of the year. Kentucky leads the SEC with a .356 batting average, but Penta held the Wildcats to just an average of .250.
"Surprisingly, despite how cold it was, all my pitches were working well, especially my rise ball," Penta said. "I just kept getting ahead of batters and trusting my defense behind me, that's all you can do."
Penta had plenty of run support early. After Makayla Packer and Jessie Blaine singled in the first, Lindsey Garcia homered to put the Tigers up 3-0 before Kentucky had come to bat. Garcia also hit a home run in Friday’s contest.
"We've been guessing too much at the plate," Garcia said. "Today, we were focused on hunting the ball. When a pitch we like that is in our zone comes up, we attack it."
The Tigers would strike again in the second, when Carlee McCondichie reached second on a Kentucky error, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a Nelia Peralta sacrifice fly to put Auburn up 4-0.
In the fourth, the first three Tigers reached as Sydney Cox earned a walk and Rose Roach singled, followed by a McCondichie RBI single to make it 5-0. Following a sacrifice bunt, Peralta would bat in another run on a groundout to put Auburn up 6-0. Those would be Auburn’s last runs of the day.
Kentucky would try to claw back, with a two-run home run from Renee Abernathy in the bottom of the fourth cutting Auburn’s lead to 6-2. The Wildcats would load the bases with no outs in the fifth inning, but Penta and the Tigers would escape the jam, allowing only one run to score.
The Wildcats threatened again in the seventh. A walk and an error, Auburn’s third of the game, brought the tying run to the place with no outs. A double play and a flyout later, however, Auburn was celebrating a 6-3 road win.
The win gave the Tigers a chance to clinch the series on Sunday.
Sunday, March 27
Despite holding a three-run lead in the seventh, Auburn could not hold on and suffered a 5-4 defeat to lose the series at Kentucky.
The Tigers started Shelby Lowe, who pitched for 6.1 innings, striking out nine and giving up six hits and three runs, two of which were earned.
Bri Ellis had two solo home runs for the Tigers. Ellis’s first came in the second inning to open the scoring. After Blaine hit a solo homer in the fourth inning, Ellis followed with her second of the game, putting the Tigers up 3-0 in the fourth.
Kentucky would respond in the bottom of the inning with a solo home run by Erin Coffel, cutting Auburn’s lead to 3-1. In the sixth inning, however, Auburn got what appeared to be a big insurance run as Garcia hit a double and came home to score on an Aubrie Lisenby single.
Going to the bottom of the seventh, with Auburn up 4-1, it seemed as if the Tigers were on the verge of getting a signature road series win against a top-10 team. Then, the game fell apart on the Tigers.
Lauren Johnson hit a leadoff double for the Wildcats and came home to score on an error, cutting Auburn’s to 4-2 with no outs.
After a sacrifice groundout advanced the runner to second, Dean made the call to take Lowe out of the game and replace her with Penta, who had pitched all seven innings the day before.
Penta allowed a single to Coffel, putting runners on the corners with just one out and bringing the winning run to the plate. That winning run was Renee Abernathy, who already had two home runs and 8 RBIs during the weekend, including the grand slam which ended Friday’s game.
For the second time, Abernathy walked it off for the Wildcats, hitting her third home run of the series. Unlike the first walk-off, however, it gave the Wildcats a come-from-behind win. Penta took just her second loss of the season.
The Tigers were hurt by mistakes of their own making, committing five errors. Packer committed one in the first inning and Rose Roach had an error in the fifth.
Second baseman Sydney Cox had three errors, including one in the seventh inning which allowed a run to score. The Tigers came into the game fielding just .960, the fourth-worst fielding percentage in the SEC.
“Our defense let us down today,” Dean said. “We had five errors on routine, easy plays. We would never have faced the heart of Kentucky’s lineup in the seventh with a clean game. We played hard, but we have to do the little things.”
The Tigers will look to bounce back from this difficult series loss, their first of the season, when they host Alabama State on Wednesday. That will be followed by a three-game home series against No. 6 Florida next weekend.
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Matthew is a senior from Huntsville, Alabama, majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @mattwallaceAU
