After winning the night before against the Alabama State Yellowjackets, the Auburn Tigers (7-2) came back to Plainsmen Park to take on the Blazers of UAB (6-2). Over the course of nine innings, except for the first inning Auburn dominated UAB thanks to a combination of a fantastic start from Mason Barnett, and great batting performances for a final score of 16-1.
Mason Barnett got the win for Auburn and he produced eight strikeouts in five innings; however, UAB was the one who struck first blood after a Sac fly to Josh Sears. That would be UAB’s only run of the game.
Barnett would go on to dominate only giving up two hits in his tenure. After five innings, Chase Allsup, Cade Granzow, Garrett Wade and Ben Bosse all got a valuable inning of work in which they combined for one hit and three strikeouts.
Auburn would score three runs in the bottom of the second and never looked back, thanks in part to both Blake Rambusch, and Bryson Ware both having three hit games. Blake Rambusch would also have two RBI’s, but Bryson Ware really came to show up in clutch spots with six RBI’s. Overall, however everyone on the team did a fantastic job at the batter’s box with 17 hits on the day, and three doubles and a Bryson Ware triple.
UAB did not do a great job, I think the Scoreboard speaks for itself as it shows one run, three hits, and two errors. One other problem that UAB had was summed up as by something I learned about baseball at a young age “Baseball is a quick game, as long as pitchers show strikes.” UAB threw 211 pitches 46% of which were balls and pitched 10 different pitchers.
In the post-game interview Auburn’s head coach Butch Thomson talked a lot about being relentless, particularly “eelentless in their minds.” Auburn will be looking to keep being relentless as there next game will be a four game series against Rhode Island the weekend of March fourth to March sixth, first game of which is at Plainsman Park at 6:00 p.m. CST on March 4.
