The pitching staff came through in a big way Saturday.

Five Auburn pitchers combined to hold No. 12 Texas Tech to three hits in the Tigers 2-1 win at the State Farm College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas.

Auburn starter Joseph Gonzalez threw 5.0 scoreless innings to earn the win while closer Blake Burkhalter threw 2.0 perfect innings to earn his first save of the season.

“We beat a 12th-ranked team at a neutral site with a huge crowd, and our pitchers did an amazing job,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson told the Auburn Network. We’ve still got some things left out here offensively, but to be able to win a close game is just huge for this ball club.

“Really at the end of the day, we’re just trying to focus on our minds this first weekend to see how much we can learn. Confidence and no excuses — those are a couple of things we’re really trying to touch on.”

Auburn scored a run in the second off a single by Cole Foster to score Bryson Ware, who walked and stole second with two outs. The Tigers added to their lead in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Kason Howell to score Ryan Dyal.

"It was very electric. That’s what we came here to do, to compete against the best,” said Foster. “We told ourselves coming into today’s game that this is our time, flush yesterday. Everyone was up, we were all excited and we got Jospeh on the mound. Everybody trusts Joseph.”

Gonzalez (1-0) allowed three hits and three walks while striking out five on 81 pitches. He turned it over to Garrett Wade, who gave up a run after walking the first two batters he faced.

John Armstrong came on to get the final two outs of the sixth and Carson Skipper threw a scoreless seventh before turning it over to Burkhalter, who needed just 16 pitches to retire six batters.

“We had a guy that we think is our closer come in the eighth because 3, 4 and 5 were coming up and the best hitter in college baseball,” said Thompson. “If we think this is our best guy, we can’t wait until the ninth. This is college baseball so we brought him in the eighth and he did his work and of course finished up the ninth.

“We faced an elite program that’s been consistent for a long time. And when you do that, you know they’re not going to give that away. What we did bank mentally is that we can play at a high level. There were no errors by either team. This game was played at a very high level.”

The Tigers (1-1), which lost 3-0 to Oklahoma Friday, will play Kansas State Sunday at 10:30 a.m. CT on FloBaseball.