Published Jun 8, 2019
Super Regional notebook
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Bryan Matthews  •  AuburnSports
Senior Editor
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@BMattAU

CHAPEL HILL | Auburn may have to scramble for a game two starter.

Scheduled starter Bailey Horn didn’t make it to the Boshamer Stadium Saturday after coming down with a stomach ailment. The sophomore left-hander is coming off his best performance of the season holding Georgia Tech without a run in 6.0 innings to win the Atlanta Regional last Sunday.

“We just keep going ‘good,’” Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. “Every time I hear a challenge that pops up in our face we just go, ‘Good, we’ll figure it out.' Hopefully Bailey is feeling better. He wasn’t with us today, but hopefully he can still come out and get us started tomorrow.”

If Horn can’t go, Auburn will have several options including Richard Fitts, Ryan Watson and Brooks Fuller. Fitts threw 6.0 shutout innings out of the bullpen against the Yellow Jackets last Saturday to earn the win, but has struggled as a starter with a 12.15 ERA compared to a 2.56 as a reliever. Watson has started just one game this season but has been one of AU’s most effective pitchers down the stretch. Fuller has eight starts, which is third-most on the team.

Auburn won Saturday’s opener of the Chapel Hill Regional 11-7. Sunday’s game two is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on ESPN.

BULLPEN BUSTERS: Thompson and Auburn’s players lauded North Carolina’s bullpen coming into the Super Regional, but got the best of them Saturday. Five Tar Heel relievers combined to give up nine runs over the final 2.2 innings of the game. Auburn had nine hits and six walks off the UNC bullpen.

“We put some good swings on them,” Thompson said. “But they’ve got them here. We’ll see them again and we’ll have to be prepared and see how stuff sets up. In college baseball with young people and momentum, things setup differently everyday for a pitcher.”

BUTCH’S FROZEN MESSAGE: Thompson channeled Elsa from Disney's Frozen to deliver a postgame message to his players, which was to just, ‘Let it go.’ Thompson was disappointed a couple of players — Kason Howell and Judd Ward in particular — let a base running error or a poor at-bat carryover into the field or later at-bats.

“What will be important tomorrow is try to focus one pitch at a time,” Thompson said. “If something happens, and it probably will at some point in the contest tomorrow, can we let it go and get right back on what’s important now?”

OUTLOOK GOOD: According to ESPN, the winner of the first game of a Super Regional has a 79 percent chance of advancing to the College World Series. That bodes well for Auburn, which is trying to return to the CWS for the first time since 1997 and win a Super Regional for the first time in program history.

“We know that we have much, much work left to do,” Thompson said. “North Carolina reminded us of that today, from the standpoint of scoring two and leaving the bases loaded to finish the ballgame.”

The Tigers weren’t the only unseeded team to upset a national seed on the road in game one. Michigan beat No. 1 seed UCLA and Duke beat No. 2 seed Vanderbilt Friday night. Both will try to punch their tickets to Omaha late Saturday night. Florida State beat No. 13 seed LSU Saturday in the opener of the Baton Rouge Super Regional.

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