Milwaukee pulls off the upset victory, 13-8, over regional host, Auburn
Underdog Milwaukee pulls off the upset victory over regional host, Auburn, as the Tigers fall 13-8 on Friday. Top-seeded Auburn’s starting pitching was short-lived as the Panthers got out to an early 10-0 lead.
After only an inning and some change, Milwaukee chased Auburn starter Jake Marciano out as eight of the first 10 batters for the Panthers reached base. Three of the first four batters reached via singles, setting Braydyn Horn up perfectly for the game’s first 3-run homer.
With all that coming in Marciano’s first 16 pitches of the game, he couldn’t keep things under control after that. As Marciano started the second inning, Milwaukee’s bats stayed hot. Back-to-back doubles for the Panthers, with the second one coming off the bat of Christian Holmes, pushed the lead to five and Marciano to the brink.
It wasn’t even 30 pitches in for Marciano, as he had seven hits and five runs. Before a single out was even recorded in the second inning, the eighth of the first 10 batters reached base, forcing Auburn to go to their bullpen with LJ Cormier.
Cormier got out of the inning with only one runner coming in to score, but Milwaukee wasn’t done with just six runs.
By the time Grant Ross drove Connor Bozak with his RBI single, an ugly upset was on the horizon for the faithful Auburn crowd. One batter later, Charlie Marion made that upset a whole lot uglier and likely with the team’s second 3-run homer to push the lead to 10.
Auburn’s slow-starting offense sputtered to life in the fourth inning behind the bats of some underclassmen. With back-to-back singles by Chris Rembert and Bub Terrell, Ethin Bimgaman brought some energy into Plainsman Park with a 3-run homer in favor of the home team.
Milwaukee’s offense would continue their hot hitting in limited fashion, scoring only three runs in the game’s final five innings, but it would be enough to keep the game out of Auburn’s reach. Coach Butch Thompson would talk about Milwaukee’s aggravating second-half offense after the game.
“To their credit, when I said they played, they kept playing offense all nine innings, they just kept scratching 1-1-1 so they wound up getting three runs there ‘ Coach Thompson said. “They kept expanding and doing a nice job there, getting out of innings and not doing enough stuff”.
Eric Guevara and Chase Fralick’s homers brought the game within five, warming the game up after the rain delay, but it wasn’t enough for the Tigers as Milwaukee’s offense kept on being relentless to finish the game 13-8.
With regionals being double-elimination, Eric Guevara talked after the game about how important tomorrow's game is, not only to the team but also to the seniors.
Guevara said, “At this point, you know, if we lose another game, our season's over, you know, we have seniors on the team, some careers are going to be over, and you know, it's just a kind of a little wake-up call to other guys that, you know, we have another game tomorrow, and we can still do something really special here at home, and just we have another game”.
Auburn will fight to continue its season tomorrow against the loser of the NC State-UCF game at 2 p.m CST, weather permitting. TV broadcast is TBA.
