Auburn Baseball Survives Another Elimination Game in Regionals

The Auburn Tigers stay alive in another game in the NCAA Regionals. 

The Tigers baseball team takes down the UCF Knights 9-3 in an elimination game to move on in the Auburn Regional. 

It was a long delay before the game kicked off, and two more weather delays occurred in the early innings of the contest, but they found a way to finish it, and Alex Petrovic handled all the adversity. 

He did exactly what Butch Thompson and the Tigers needed from him after some questionable pitching from the staff earlier in the weekend. He went six strong innings after 105 pitches and kept Auburn in the mix. He left with the lead and was awarded the win. 

Ryan Hetzler came in and finished the game and picked up the three-inning save for Auburn. With the first pitch only being 45 minutes away from start time, he may be able to return for game two Sunday night. 

The Auburn bats were well alive, especially with the home runs. The team sent six homers over the fence, marking 11 over the last two games inside the regionals. Chase Fralick hit two homers in the game, and Ethin Bingaman continued his hot freshman season with another homer as well. The other three long balls came from Mason McCraine, Cade Belyeu, and Taylor Belza. 

The Tigers will play a second game on Sunday night vs. Milwaukee with a first pitch start time of 10:10 PM CT. If Auburn wins, they will play one more game on Monday in a winner-take-all in route to the Super Regionals.