Auburn takes series at Mizzou
It will be a good trip home for Auburn.
The Tigers beat Missouri 9-7 Sunday afternoon at Taylor Stadium to win their first SEC series of the season and improve to 25-25 overall and 6-21 in the conference.
Christian Herberholz (2-2) earned the win with 5.0 shutout innings. He gave up four hits and two walks, and struck out four on 72 pitches.
“Herberholz was probably the player of the game,” AU coach Butch Thompson told the Auburn Network. “Couple of walks there early, not quite steady, but once he got to the third, fourth, fifth innings, he really started mixing his pitches and getting the entire arsenal over the plate.”
After failing to have a starter win a league game all season, Chase Allsup and Herberholz gave AU back-to-back wins this weekend.
Missouri rallied for a run in the sixth off Ben Schorr and five more in the eighth off Cameron Keshock, before Hayden Murphy came in to get the final six outs of the game allowing one run.
"A couple of challenges that we have are still there but we played enough offense all weekend,” said Thompson. “Good defense the whole way but we had that one inning where they had a bunch of hits. I thought Hayden Murphy was ready to compete and get us to the finish line today.”
Cade Belyeu started the scoring with a solo home run in the second inning. AU added three more runs in the third on an RBI-groundout by Ike Irish, RBI-single by Cooper McMurray and sacrifice fly by Carter Wright.
Chris Stanfield crushed a three-run home run over the left field wall in the seventh to extend the lead to 7-1, and give AU its ninth home run of the series.
“You’ve always got to play the full nine innings because you never know what will happen,” Stanfield told the Auburn Network. “I’m just thankful to come through for the team and for us to get this series win.”
AU added two more runs in the eighth on a bases-loaded single with two outs by Deric Fabian.
“I thought Cade Belyeu’s first big blow really got us going there. Deric Fabian had a great game today,” said Thompson.
Fabian was 3 of 4 with two RBI and Stanfield 2 of 5 with three RBI.
Auburn plays Samford at the Hoover Met Tuesday night at 6 p.m. CT and then closes out the season hosting Alabama for a three-game series beginning Thursday night at 6 p.m.
“Got one more week,” said Thompson. “We tried to carry the momentum of Ole Miss into this week and we absolutely did that. Can you carry this momentum into an exciting game in Birmingham and then coming back home for one more series at Plainsman Park against your rival?”