Despite an undefeated tournament run in Arlington, TX just a week ago, Auburn enters its final non-conference series of the season against Old Dominion following a tough midweek loss to UAB 6-5 in Birmingham, AL.
Auburn sits at 12-1 after sweeping the field at Globe Field in Texas this weekend. The Tigers dominated all facets of the game versus Ohio State, then won a nail biter versus number 8 Oregon State and beat Baylor to cap off the successful weekend. The Tigers now are ranked at 22 according to D1 Baseball.
Auburns pitching staff continues to impress with a 3.28 team ERA as it struggled at times last year especially in SEC play. Starters Samuel Dutton and Christian Chatterton have been lights out so far this year as well as reliever Jackson Sanders.
The bats were also hot for Auburn this past weekend scoring 28 runs across the three games. The teams .338 batting average is good for 17th in the country so far this season.
Moving over to Old Dominion who sits at 3-7 on the year has not played the best baseball up to this point. They were swept by Georgia Tech to start the year then won a series over a good Charlotte team. They have lost 3 of their last 4 but are coming off a nice win versus Middle Tennesse State.
The Monarchs do have arguably one of the best pitchers in the country so far in junior southpaw Dylan Brown. Brown has a whopping 0.0 era through his 19 innings in three starts. He has 30 strikeouts on the year and has only given up eight hits.
This is an SEC level arm the Tigers get to face right before SEC play which will be a nice test for the Auburn offense. As well as Brown the Monarchs other two starters have been pretty solid this year with 3.55 ERA for Ben Moore and 5.19 ERA from Blake Morgan. The downfall of the pitching staff for Old Dominion is their relievers have been below average so far this year.
Old Dominion as a team is hitting .232 on the year which is ranked 252nd in the country and as a team only has five home runs which is also ranked fairly low among all of division one baseball. Their top two hitters are Efrain Morales and TJ Aiken. Morales is hitting .300 on the year with four extra base hits and Aiken is hitting .250 with two bombs.
First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. CST on Friday, March 7 inside of Plainsman Park. The second game of the series is set for 5 p.m. CST on Saturday, March 8 and the Tigers and Monarchs will conclude on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. CST.
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Jack is a sophomore majoring in sports production. He started with The Plainsman in the fall 2024.
