Auburn, AL: Auburn baseball traveled to Gainesville this weekend to take on the No. 3 Florida Gators in Auburn’s second SEC road series. Auburn would start out the series hot by winning game one in convincing fashion but would drop games two and three to the Gators, making it a second straight series dropped on the road.
Game one for the Tigers was one of Auburn's best offensive performances of the year, beating the Gators 10-1, with 11 hits. Backed by four RBIs on the day by freshman Ike Irish, the Tigers pitching staff of Cannon, Bauman, and Isbell did their job to secure the largest road win Auburn has had in SEC play since 2018 when the Tigers beat the Crimson Tide 20-5.
“We’re not going to face a better offense. This is as good as it gets in America,” head coach Butch Thompson said when talking about the Gators success this season hitting the ball. “We kept making enough plays to get to the finish line and gave up only one run. We executed the plan we talked about in a much better fashion. A lot of guys contributed tonight.”
The Gators were able to fight back on Saturday to even up the series with a 12-5 win over Auburn. The nation's leading hitting offense tallied 19 hits off the Tigers' four pitchers. Each time in this matchup when Auburn scored in the top of the inning, Florida would respond with more runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning. The series would now move to Sunday to determine the winner.
"That was the difference in the ballgame for me," head coach Butch Thompson said of Florida's ability to answer the Tigers. "All three times we scored tonight, not only did they score the very next half-inning, but they scored more than we scored in the top half. They answered us each and every time we scored and created offense."
Sunday brought about more of the same for the Tigers, as they were defeated by Florida 17-8, losing the series. However, despite the loss, Auburn had a productive day at the plate, tallying up 10 hits, including home runs from Bryson Ware, Cooper McMurray and Caden Green. Auburn would take the lead in the 5th inning, just to give it back an inning later when the game became tied up 8-8. After that it was all Florida, scoring four runs in the 7th and five runs in the 8th to prevent any comeback chance the Tigers could have.
"We got right where we wanted to," head coach Butch Thompson said. "We built that 8-3 lead and when I saw them run and catch us, just so many freebies to allow them to get back in the ballgame there.
Even with the Tigers pitchers striking out 12 Gators, the 13 walks along with 12 hits was just too much for Auburn.
"We didn't throw the ball well, and Florida really started hitting and running away," Thompson added.
Auburn will be back in action again on Tuesday April 4th, as the Tigers travel to Birmingham to take on UAB at Regions Field. First pitch is set for 6:00 pm CST.
