AUBURN | Auburn battled back but not all the way back.

The Tigers cut a 6-2 deficit to one run in the seventh inning but couldn’t push another run across in a 6-5 loss at No. 4 Ole Miss.

The Rebels take the series after Friday’s 1-0 win as the Tigers fall to 11-7 overall and 0-2 in the SEC.

“We just got out of the gates slow,” said Auburn coach Butch Thompson. “I’m going to stay with them. If I can ever get a team just to compete this way every single day and be right there with the tying run on base and keep swinging the bat and keep fighting to get back in the game, I’m going to hang with them.”

Trailing 6-2 after three innings, Auburn got one back in the sixth on an RBI-double by pinch-hitter John Samuel Shenker, and two more in the seventh on solo home runs by Ryan Bliss, his second of the game, and Tyler Miller.

Rankin Woley had a two-out single in the ninth but a drive by Miller to right field was caught on the warning track to end the game.

Auburn’s bullpen held Ole Miss in check over the final six innings. Brooks Fuller threw 2.1 scoreless innings despite allowing three hits and three walks. Carson Swilling struck out three and allowed two hits in 1.2 innings and Blake Burkhalter threw a scoreless eighth despite walking two batters.

Ole Miss left the bases loaded in the fourth and eighth innings and left two more on in the seventh.

“Getting some work out of Brooks Fuller. It’s been a few weeks since he’s had a good outing,” Thompson said. “I thought Swilling and Burkhalter did an amazing job for us. Our offense just kept playing but we never really had the big inning.”

The Rebels jumped on AU starter Mason Barnett for six runs, four earned, in 3.0 innings as they broke out to a 6-2 lead. Barnett (2-1) gave up five hits, two walks, a hit batter, balk and a wild pitch.

AU scored a run in the first on an RBI-single by Miller and another in the third on a solo home run. Judd Ward had three hits while Bliss, Woley and Miller had two hits apiece.

Auburn hitters struck out 12 times, however, and were just 3 of 15 with runners on base.

“I just want to get in that rhythm for us to score big and have big innings,” Thompson said. “We hit three home runs today and they were all solos. We’ve got to find a way with these runners in scoring position to be able to fight through those at-bats and as they're going to their off-speed, to be able to handle it and put the ball in play.

“I thought that was the biggest difference in the ballgame today.”

The series will conclude Sunday at 1:30 p.m. CT on SECN+/ESPN+.