AUBURN | One pitch and one swing.

That was the difference as No. 1 Tennessee took the series over No. 19 Auburn with a 5-3 win at Lindsey Nelson Stadium Sunday.

With the game tied 3-3 in the eighth inning, Joseph Gonzalez hung a breaking pitch up in the zone and Jordan Beck drove it well over the left field wall for a two-run home run.

“Joseph gave us an unbelievable opportunity like he does every third game here,” AU coach Butch Thompson told the Auburn Network. “I think both teams know that they played and it was a battle all the way through.

“The effort was tremendous … for our guys to not blink and drag this thing all the way to late Sunday to have a chance to win a series.”

Auburn falls to 31-14 overall and 12-9 in the SEC while the Volunteers improve to 40-4 and 19-2. UT won game one 17-4 Friday, in a game AU led 4-2 in the sixth, before AU bounced back to win game two 8-6.

Gonzalez (6-1) suffered his first loss of the season allowing five runs on seven hits in 7.1 innings. He gave up three runs in the first including a two-run home run by Trey Lipscomb, his SEC-leading 18th of the season, but settled down to retire 18 of 21 batters from the second to the seventh inning.

Trailing 3-0, Auburn got on the board in the fifth as Bobby Peirce led off with a solo home run and Cole Foster brought home another with a sacrifice fly cut the lead to 3-2.

Peirce, who hit the game-winning three-run home run Saturday night, tied it 3-3 in the sixth with an RBI single. He finished 2 of 4 with a run scored and two RBI.

Auburn will be off this week for finals before hosting No. 5 Arkansas for a three-game series beginning Friday night at 7:30 p.m. CT on SECN+/ESPN+.