No. 5 Auburn baseball finished the regular season in dominant fashion on Saturday afternoon, beating No. 4 Georgia 14-4 in a run-rule victory in eight innings at Plainsman Park, sparked by a 17-hit offensive surge.
With the victory, Auburn improved to 36-18 overall and 17-13 in SEC play while securing 17 conference wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1999-2000. The Tigers also marked themselves as one of only four SEC programs to record at least 17 league wins in each of the last two seasons, joining Texas, Arkansas and Georgia.
“Really playing the best schedule in America, it’s been a grind for a young team of freshmen and sophomores,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “We’re learning lessons. We’ve used that, and at the end of the day what we wound up getting is a game we’ve played a lot in game threes. That’s what we wound up getting.”
This game marked Auburn’s 12th run-rule victory of the season and its fifth against an SEC team. Six different players had multi-hit games, including Bub Terrell, who recorded his first career two-homer performance, and Brandon McCraine, who had himself a four-hit afternoon.
“That was pretty huge,” Terrell said, regarding his first home run of the game in the fourth. “To hit that and tie the game was big for us. We trust each other so much in this clubhouse, and I’m grateful to have a group of guys that believes in me the way they do.”
After giving up three runs in the first two innings, Alex Petrovic settled in and delivered six innings to earn a team-high ninth win of the season. Petrovic held Georgia to four runs while striking out three batters. Ryan Hetzler then followed with two scoreless innings to close out the game and secure the victory.
“Petrovic being able to steady himself with just an amazing amount of confidence and belief in what he’s doing and the offense playing a lot of ball,” Thompson said. “We’re at our best when we have our whole offense working and everybody contributing. We absolutely had that today.”
Georgia struck first when Daniel Jackson launched a two-run homer to center field in the first inning. The Bulldogs added another run to the board on a sacrifice fly in the second inning to take a 3-0 lead early.
However, Auburn responded quickly in the bottom half of the inning. Ethin Bingaman scored the first run for the Tigers following a throwing error at first base, and then Cade Belyeu added a sacrifice fly. McCraine later tied the game at 3-3 with a two-out RBI single through the left side.
Georgia reclaimed the lead in the fourth inning after Cole Johnson hit his first home run of the season, but Auburn answered immediately. Terrell opened the bottom of the inning with a game-tying solo home run before the Tigers’ offense exploded for six runs in the fifth inning, shifting the momentum and putting the game out of reach for Georgia.
“We’ll see how many teams in America can say this, and I mean this from a place of humility, but with the schedule we’ve played, what we’ve been through and the wins we’ve earned, I feel like every time we take the field we have a chance to beat anybody in the country on any given day,” Thompson said. “This group has continued to battle.”
With the win, Auburn secured the No. 6 seed in the SEC Tournament and will face the winner of No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 14 LSU on Wednesday in Hoover, Alabama. The Tigers now head into postseason play having won six of their last seven SEC series, continuing to establish themselves as one of the hottest teams in the SEC.
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Lila is a freshman majoring in journalism sports production. She started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2025.
