Auburn catcher Chase Fralick
Having faced elimination for four straight games, and then winning all of them, including the Auburn Regional Championship game Monday night, 8-3 against, upstart Milwaukee, the Tigers will battle. That will be a concern for Ole Miss.
The Auburn Super Regional starts Friday.
The field includes several SEC-on-SEC matchups like Ole Miss (39-21) at Auburn (42-20). Mississippi State goes to Georgia, now the highest seed left at No. 3. Both UCLA, the top seed, and No. 2 Georgia Tech, went down in flames, along with Texas A&M, and Southern Miss.
In an unprecedented result, three four-seeds advanced. St. John’s, Cal Poly and Little Rock, are the three, and no one has ever heard of them at this level.
A three-seed, the mighty Troy Trojans who took down the Florida Gators, will host a Super Regional. It’s against the Little Rock Trojans, in a battle to decide who is the bigger Trojan and a berth in the College World Series. The last time Troy hosted a regional, they were battling Delta State, North Alabama and Jacksonville State in Division II.
Auburn and Ole Miss, are old rivals, and frequent, too, but they did not meet this season. Ole Miss defeated Auburn in its opening game of the 2022 CWS. The Rebels then went on to win its first National Championship, beating Oklahoma in the title game, 4-2. Oklahoma, by the way, has also advanced to the Supers, and will face Kansas in a Big-12 reunion. Texas and Alabama are also included, which means three Alabama-based teams will host this weekend.
What Ole Miss gets in Auburn is a combative team. They had the No. 1 ranked schedule according to Warren Nolan and the RPI. They played everybody but Ole Miss, it seems. They beat Florida State, lost to Cincy, and rallied to beat Nebraska in a three-game series. Against the Huskers, they lost the first game 9-8 in 10 innings and then blew them out in the next two, 15-4 and 12-3.
They won the first game at Texas and then lost the next two. They were swept the Tide, and then the Tigers swept Mississippi State in Starkville. The second game was the most memorable of the season when the Tigers made a miracle rally and won 5-4. They went 1-2 against Georgia, now the favorite in the field. They beat A&M 2-and-1, Florida and Oklahoma.
Personnel wise, Auburn likes to start Monday night’s starter against Milwaukee, in Jake Marciano. He is 5-6 with a 3,32 ERA. The Tigers prefer to bring in Jackson Sanders to come behind him. Sanders closed last night and got the win as the Tigers rallied with five runs in the sixth to break a 2-2 tie. Sanders is 5-1 with 93 strikeouts.
The ace is Alex Petrovic (10-2) and a 3.19 ERA. Anduras Alavarez is 10-3 with a 3.52 ERA. It explains why the Tigers will be tough in a three-game series.
Catcher Chase Fralick leads with 20 home runs and 60 RBIs. He had six home runs in the regional including the big one last night.
Bub Terrell had a key double and hits .284, 16 home runs and 45 RBI. Chris Rembert bats .354 while Ethin Benjamin is at .335 wth 15 home runs and 50 RBI.
