AUBURN | It was nice to be on the other end of a walk-off.
Auburn, which suffered two walk-off losses last weekend, rallied to beat Jacksonville State 8-7 in 10 innings Wednesday night at Plainsman Park.
Judd Ward led off the 10th with a double, went to third on a sacrifice bunt by Ryan Dyal and scored on a single off the left field wall by Tyler Miller as the Tigers improve to 16-18 overall and 7-0 in midweek games.
“It’s huge,” said Miller. “We haven’t had a walk-off win since the third game against Presbyterian in our very first series. So it’s nice to be on the receiving end of a walk-off instead of walking back to the dugout when somebody walks us off.
“it’s just a huge momentum boost for the team. Just knowing no matter how much we’re down by throughout the game, we can always come back and win and we can win one-run games as well.”
Cam Hill (2-0) picked up the win after throwing a scoreless 10th that included a 1-6-3 double play.
Auburn did commit two infield errors, however, and had a couple of players thrown out on the bases.
“I thought we’ve played a lot higher level of baseball than we did tonight,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. “I thought at times we weren’t mentally engaged in the ballgame. We didn’t dominate the routine play. I thought our base running was atrocious at times tonight.
“But we’ve had some of these where we’ve played a great baseball game and lost. It’s great to win a baseball game that way and figure out a way to win.”
Trailing 5-2, Auburn tied it up in the sixth as Ward tripled home a run and scored on an errant throw to third by second baseman Cole Frederick. Dyal doubled and then came home on a single by Miller.
The Tigers took a 7-5 lead in the seventh as Ryan Bliss drove in two with a two-out double down the left field line. But JSU was able to tie it up with solo home runs in the eighth and ninth.
Miller was 3 of 6 with two RBI, Rankin Woley 2 of 4 with a solo home run in the first and Ward 2 of 5 with one RBI.
“Judd has been struggling a little bit and he fights it so hard because he’s so competitive,” Thompson said. “I thought he sparked our offense tonight.”
Auburn used seven pitchers with Mason Barnett throwing a scoreless first, Brooks Fuller allowing one run in the second and Seb Thomas giving up four runs in 0.2 innings.
Joseph Gonzalez came out of the bullpen to throw 3.1 scoreless innings before Nate LaRue allowed a run in 1.0 innings in his collegiate debut and Blake Burkhalter allowed a run in 2.0 innings.
“Gonzalez bounced back and gave us over three innings of work. It was good. That was solid for him,” Thompson said.
Auburn returns to SEC play this weekend hosting a three-game series against No. 15 Florida. Friday’s game is 6 p.m. CT on SECN+/ESPN+, Saturday 11 a.m. on SEC Network and Sunday 1 p.m. on SECN+/ESPN+.
