Auburn Softball wins series with walk-off homer
"Today we played as a team instead of as nine individuals," head coach Mickey Dean said when talking about Auburn’s dominant performance in game two.
"Today we played as a team instead of as nine individuals," head coach Mickey Dean said when talking about Auburn’s dominant performance in game two.
Bruce Pearl said, “But what I'll take from this team is the fact that they brought it every night. They won more games on the road than any team in the SEC in league play, and we have the best home court advantage in league play.” He added, “That's why we were able to finish. We finished 15-3 in the league. So champions.”
Overall, Auburn played a very up and down series against the No. 1 team in the nation, but showed if they do not shoot themselves in the foot with errors and leaving runners on, this Auburn team can play with anyone in the SEC or nation as evidenced by the second game win by the score of 19-5.
"Auburn's defense was outstanding. That’s been what has carried us all season long and that gives us our best chance in the tournament,” said Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl.
Auburn went wire-to-wire against the Frank Martin led Gamecocks (18-12, 9-9 SEC, defeating South Carolina 82-71. Jabari Smith led in scoring once again with 21 points, his third straight 20 point game, and KD Johnson was not far behind with 18.
Thanks to performances by Olympic Gold medalist Sunisa Lee, senior Derrian Gobourne and the largest crowd in Neville Arena history, Auburn set a program record with a score of 198.575, tying the Gators.
“This is one of the best regular season wins I’ve had,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. “It was awesome to see the fight they had on the road and how bad they wanted to win this championship”.
“Nobody got settled Tonight, I like that," head coach Butch Thomson said on tonight's win.
For the second straight year, Auburn (10-18, 2-14 SEC) has been eliminated in the first round of the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Following the game, Coach Thompson expressed gratitude for the opportunity to get much-needed experience for some of the teams’ key players including Nate LaRue and Cam Hill.
Kentucky, and especially Rhyne Howard, proved too much for Auburn in Lexington as the Wildcats prevailed 90-62 in the regular season finale.
After beating Jacksonville State, the No. 21 ranked Auburn Tiger softball team (15-1) came back home to battle in The Plainsmen Invite, a series that included teams as ULM, Delaware State, Bradley university, and Syracuse.
The Tigers shot it at a 35.4% clip, while the Volunteers shot it at a 32.8% clip. However, Tennessee has a big edge in both rebounding and free throw shooting. The Volunteers outrebounded Auburn 54 to 31 and grabbed 21 offensive boards.
“I was really proud of the girls, the way they settled down and kept building throughout the meet...We’re going to look back on this and feel like this made us better," Jeff Graba said.
“I thought we passed open a lot of wide-open shots, and then we took some bad shots. We got better in the second half. But then we just didn’t guard them, we gave them wide-open shots in that zone.
Coach Pearl also said, “We have a long way to go and there’s a lot of room to get better.”
This is the Tigers' second Top-25 win this season.
The losing streak in Gainesville has reached 14. No. 2 Auburn overcame an anemic first half on offense to take a second half lead, but a barrage of threes late in the second half led by Tyree Appleby gave Florida a late lead and the Gators were able to get a last second stop to preserve a 63-62 win in the Swamp.
Suni Lee was asked about winning her fourth straight all-around with a 39.775. She answered, “I knew I wanted to come to Auburn to make history and give all the other girls an opportunity to be great, too”.
“We took some quick shots that were not in our plan, then we took some bad shots. We have very little room for error, and we made a lot of those errors tonight” Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris said.