Auburn’s conference season finished just how it started.
The 2nd-ranked Tigers rallied from a five-run deficit to beat No. 22 Ole Miss 13-8 Saturday afternoon at Swayze Field.
“This was the last SEC series,” AU coach Butch Thompson told the Auburn Network. “It was on the road. And it was against an amazing offensive club in their home ballpark. We couldn’t get them out and Ryan Hetzler changed all that.
“This was a big win for the program. We needed to get one today and the guys responded in a big way.”
Just 10 weeks earlier, AU also rallied from five runs down to defeat Vanderbilt 7-6 in the third game of that series.
With the win, Auburn finishes the regular season 38-17 overall and 17-13 in the SEC and clinches the No. 6 seed and a first-round bye in next week’s SEC Tournament.
“Im proud of the guys,” Cooper McMurray told the Auburn Network. “Thursday and Friday didn’t go as well as we planned but we showed a lot of fight in the later innings. That kind of just continued today. They punched us. We punched back.
“Just being able to land that last punch and then Hetzler coming in and finishing the ballgame was huge.”
Trailing 8-3 in the sixth inning, Auburn struck for five runs including three with two outs. Eric Guevara singled home two, Cooper McMurray doubled home another and Lucas Steele drove in two more with a double.
The Rebels threatened to answer right back in the bottom of the inning, but Hetzler got AU out of a jam with a 5-4-3 double play.
“We had been searching for innings to put a zero up there,” said Thompson. “You can’t assume a double play but when it happens, you can grab some momentum there. And I think that happened in a big way today.”
The Tigers carried that momentum into the seventh, scoring two more runs on an RBI-double by Chris Rembert and a bases-loaded balk by OM reliever Hunter Calhoun.
AU added three more in the ninth after loading the bases with no outs. McMurray was hit by a pitch, Guevara scored from third on a double play and Ike Irish scored on a wild pitch.
Hetzler (2-0) earned the win holding a high-powered Rebel offense to a run on eight hits over the final 5.0 innings. He didn’t have a strikeout or issue a walk in a season-high innings pitched.
“There’s absolutely nothing left in the tank. That was everything that was left,” Hetzler told the Auburn Network. “It means a lot, just having a lot of trust behind me. I kept asking for one more, one more. I knew it was our seniors’ last regular season and I wanted to do it for them.”
Guevara was 2 of 5 with two RBI, McMurray 2 of 5 with two RBI, Bristol Carter 2 of 5 with two RBI, Rembert 2 of 5 with one RBI and Irish 1 of 4 with one RBI and his 16th home run of the season.
Auburn took its first lead of the series in the fourth inning as Irish led off with a home run and Carter drove home two with a two-out single off the third baseman’s glove.
But it didn’t last long as Isaac Humphrey hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the inning. The Rebels added four more in the fifth to build a five-run lead.
AU starter Christian Chatterton allowed four runs on three hits and a walk in 4.0 innings. Dylan Watts allowed three runs on two hits without recording an out in the fifth.
