If you listened to the keyboard warriors who spend their day looking for the latest thing to gripe about on message boards, Auburn should have packed it up on Friday afternoon after losing the first game of the NCAA Regional at home in Plainsman Park. It was just another example of J.A.B.A., and Butch Thompson certainly wasn’t the right guy to lead the Tigers’ baseball program in the future.
Heck, might as well fire John Cohen while we were at it, despite the fact that he wasn’t the person who hired Thompson in the first place.
Three long days and four wins later, Auburn fans are singing a different tune after No. 4 Auburn beat Milwaukee, the same team that had essentially ended their season on Friday, to win the regional and advance to a second straight Super Regional.
“This was the hardest, most rewarding thing that we’ve been through for me personally,” Thompson said. “They found a way. Chase was just amazing, both offensively and defensively. I give the players a ton of credit. They laid it on the line for us and were tremendous.”
Of course, not all Auburn fans gave up. In fact, another attendance record was shattered on Monday night for the winner-take-all game between the Tigers and Panthers despite a four-hour delay in a weekend full of them. Filling the stands were 8,228 fans who, outside of the dozen or two Milwaukee fans, started celebrating when Auburn took a 2-0 lead, only for stomachs to start turning when the Panthers tied it up with a two-run dinger in the top of the fourth.
Chase Fralick did it all for Auburn in NCAA Regional
Much like he had done all weekend, Chase Fralick made sure that the Tigers would end up on top. The catcher led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo homer over the wall in centerfield, his sixth home run of the regional and 15th RBI, both program records.
It was the second time this season that Fralick has homered in five straight games, and none were more important than this one.
“I was looking for a fastball out over the plate,” Fralick said. “He’s been throwing a lot of them to left-handed hitters. I got one I could handle and put a good swing on it. When I’m trying not to hit homers and trying to stay with my approach is when it happens. I’m going to keep the same approach and hopefully it rolls into next week.”
Auburn added four more runs to take a 7-2 lead, and Jackson Sanders did the rest, allowing one run on three hits while fanning eight over the final five innings.
“We had to have some things work and we had to have some guys do some extraordinary things,” Thompson said. “Fralick, the pitching the last two days. All of that had to fall in place to even make this possible.”
The Tigers now host Ole Miss, the surprise winner of the Nebraska Regional, in the Super Regional, with a spot in Omaha on the line.
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