Auburn baseball failed to defeat Vanderbilt as the Tigers lost 9-6 in the third game of the series, and Auburn got swept to begin conference play.
The Tigers jumped out to an early lead in the top of the second and held a 4-0 advantage while tallying five hits in the first two frames. Auburn scored in the top of the first inning in all of its games against Vanderbilt.
The Commodores did not wait long to respond as four hits and the help of a throwing error cut the Tigers' lead in half in the bottom of the second inning.
After trading scoreless innings in the third frame, Vanderbilt scored its second unearned run of the game on a passed ball.
Cooper McMurray responded in the top of the fourth inning with a leadoff home run in a two-strike count to push the Tigers lead back to two runs.
“Honestly, I liked the effort so much more today with our guys,” said head coach Butch Thompson. “They were engaged and stayed with it the entire ballgame."
After McMurray’s leadoff homer in the fifth, Vanderbilt pitching retired 10 straight Auburn batters before Carter Wright’s one-out single in the eighth.
Vanderbilt took advantage of the Auburn hitters' drought and scored on a hit-by-pitch in the bottom of the fifth with the bases loaded that brought the Commodores back within one run.
A quick top of the sixth inning only up by a single run set up Vanderbilt with a chance to strike for the third consecutive inning and take the lead for the first time all day.
Two singles with only one out put the pressure on the Tigers who pulled pitcher Tanner Bauman in favor of Christian Herberholz. A pair of doubles scored a total of four runs in that frame and gave the Commodores an 8-5 lead.
“That sixth inning was the ballgame today,” Thompson said. “Really in the middle innings is where they absolutely got to us even though we thought we were lined up with where we wanted to be with our pitching staff.”
The two teams traded runs in the eighth inning as Auburn was unable to come back and stranded one runner in the top of the ninth inning.
The Tigers will continue their road trip to Montgomery, Alabama, to face South Alabama in a single-game series Tuesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. CST. Auburn has defeated the Jaguars in five straight meetings.
Auburn will finally return home to face another tough conference series against No. 1 Arkansas with the first game on Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. CST. The Razorbacks opened up their conference season with a sweep over Missouri and only allowed one run across all three games. Auburn faced the Razorbacks in the conference opener last season and was swept as Arkansas has given Auburn trouble, winning eight of the last 10 matchups.
The series opener will be broadcast on SEC Network and the final two games on SEC Network+.
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Craig Noyes is a junior from Kensington, Maryland, majoring in journalism. He joined The Plainsman in January 2023.
Twitter: @craignoyes58
