AUBURN | It’s been 23 years since Auburn won an NCAA Regional at home. That’s why Butch Thompson wants to party like it’s 1999 this weekend.
The Tigers are hosting an NCAA Regional for the fifth time in school history. The only one they’ve won at home was with a loaded team in 1999, which is also the last time Auburn had a dogpile in Plainsman Park.
“There have been some meaningful moments, even since we’ve been here some awesome things have happened on this field. Just one we haven’t done,” said Thompson. “I’m just always looking for a way for our program to check boxes. To me, that’s how you build a program when you get a chance to check another box.”
That 99 team, which was part of perhaps the best stretch of winning in program history, was trying to check a box of its own at the time. The 1994 team won 40 regular season games but had to go to Clemson for a Regional, going 4-0 and advancing to the College World Series for the third time in school history.
The 95 team, perhaps the best of the Hal Baird era, finished the regular season 46-9 but had to go to the Oklahoma Regional where it lost to the Sooners in the final.
A major expansion of Plainsman Park came the following year in 1996, but the 97 team, which won 43 regular season games, had to advance to the CWS through the Tallahassee Regional thanks to a dramatic home run by David Ross. The 98 team, which won 39 regular season games and then the SEC Tournament, had to go back to Tallahassee where if finished second in the regional.
It was the 99 team, which won 41 regular season games, that finally got it done. But it didn’t come easy.
Auburn was swept at LSU in the eighth series of conference play and then lost game one at Kentucky, which prompted a players-only meeting led by Casey Dunn and Colter Bean.
“Basically guys like Casey and Colter stood up and said, ‘This is not going to happen. We’re not going to go downhill at the end of the season. We’re going to stick our foot in the ground,’” recalled Gabe Gross, AU’s current hitting coach who was a freshman on the 99 team. “We won the next two games at Kentucky and then we swept Georgia at the end of the season.”
Still, the Tigers came into their home Regional as the No. 2 seed behind No. 1 seed Tulane, which was led by All-American catcher Chad Sutter, CUSA Player of the Decade Jake Gautreau, who is currently the hitting coach at Mississippi State, and freshman All-American second baseman James Jurries.
Auburn beat N.C. State in its first game behind starter Brent Schoening and three home runs, and then beat Winthrop the next day, which had upset Tulane in the opener.
The Green Wave came back to beat AU and set up a winner-take-all championship game. AU jumped ahead 7-4 in the third inning before Tulane took an 8-7 lead in the sixth. AU stormed back with six runs over the final three innings.
Bean got the final out in the bottom of the ninth of the 13-9 win on a groundout to second base and the players rushed to the mound to bury him under a sea of bodies.
“That final out, it was like this is what we did. This is what we were going to do the whole year. We were going to get that Regional. We got it and we won and it was very spontaneous,” said Gross. “It was just joy that we got it done and dogpiled. I’d never been in a dogpile. That was my first one so that was awesome.”
It was the first year of the new format with a Super Regional. So fresh off their victory, AU had to travel once again to Florida State for a best 2-of-3 series for a trip to the CWS.
FSU won game one, but AU saved its ace for game two. Schoening gave up a 2-run home run in the first but then shut down a loaded FSU lineup for the next seven innings with 11 strikeouts.
AU led 3-2 going to the ninth, but a one-out walk on a 3-2 pitch started a four-run rally and FSU won 6-3.
“I’m in left field; I wasn’t right there but I know Casey Dunn did not move his mitt, and it got called ball four,” said Gross. “We brought in Colter and he did what he was supposed to and gave up a little jam shot ground ball that just found a little hole and then a guy hit one off the wall.
“Man, we had a good team.”
The 99 team also included some all-time standouts such as Todd Faulkner, Jamie Kersh, Mailon Kent, Chad Wandall, Hayden Gliemmo and Chris Bootcheck. But it will be remembered most for Schoening, which will always make it bittersweet to look back.
Schoening, who passed away of Leukemia at age 31 in 2009, had one of the best seasons in AU history going 13-1 with a 3.32 ERA and 151 strikeouts in 138.1 innings.
Gross called his competitiveness a 15 out of 10.
“He threw in a slider every once in a while and maybe a changeup, but for the most part he took a low-90’s fastball and just beat you with it,” he said. “He was just gonna say, ‘You know what, I’m a little tougher than you are and I’m going to make my pitch and you’re not going to be able to hit it.’ And he was right the vast majority of the time. He was an unbelievable competitor.”
Auburn’s quest for a second Plainsman Park dogpile begins Friday night at 6 p.m. CT against SE Louisiana. UCLA and Florida State will open the Regional at 11 a.m.
The Tigers enter the NCAA tournament 37-19. Junior Trace Bright will start for Auburn Friday and if things go well, he could also end the weekend back on the mound.
“I think it’s time for one, but we’ve got to take tomorrow first and worry about the next team after that. I think our focus is SE Louisiana before any dogpiles,” Bright said.
