No. 13 Auburn falls to Penn in regional opener

“I give all the credit in the world to Penn,” the Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. “We knew they had a high-quality pitching staff. We just didn’t get enough hits. We couldn’t connect enough offensively to keep pace.”

After walking one out in the top of the 11th, Penn’s Ryan Taylor broke a 3-3 tie with an RBI double. The Quakers added two more runs on back-to-back safety squeeze plays.

Penn held Auburn to four singles while getting 10 Tiger base runs. Auburn struck out 14 times and was 1-for-15 with runners on, 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position and 0-for-10 with two outs.

Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth, The Tigers loaded the bases with a two-out walk and two strikeouts, scoring a pinch-runner. Josh Hall with binding when pinching Brody Moss drew a bottom-loaded walk.

Will Cannon centered around a ninth-inning single, knocking in two runners from Seth Werchan, but the Tigers fell in order in the bottom of the ninth.

Cannon missed the top 10 by two more runners^thbut Penn scored three runs on two hits and an error in the 11th^th. Cannon (3-2) allowed two earned runs and one unearned run on five hits in 2.2 innings.

Penn’s Carson Ozmer (2-2) earned the win, allowing just one hit in 3.1 scoreless innings.

Carter Wright separated by one in the bottom of the 10th^th but it doubled when Penn’s first baseman made the catch Kason Howell line drive and lifted the bag to send the game to 11^th.

Auburn led 2-1 with two outs in the top of the eighth when the Quakers drew a walk and Jackson Appel followed with a two-run single to right field, his third hit of the game.

Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the sixth, Auburn scored two runs on a bases-loaded walk and an RBI groundout.

Auburn kickoff Chase Allsup held Penn hitless until Appel led off the top of the fourth with a single to right, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Wyatt Henseler’s double to give the Quakers a 1-0 lead.

After walking Appel with one out in the top of the first, Allsup retired the next eight Penn batters, four with strikeouts.

Allsup had a career-high seven strikeouts, allowing one earned run on three hits in 5.0 innings.

Tanner Bauman relieved Allsup to start the sixth inning, blanking Penn for two innings until he ran into eight innings.

Penn starter Ryan Dromboski shut out Auburn for five innings, exiting with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth after a pair of walks and Like an Irishman another single.

Cooper McMurray drew a plate-loading walk from Penn reliever Brian Zeldin at the plate Bryson Ware tie the score 1-1. Howell, making his program-record 247 calls^th play followed by a groundout to third that brought home Ireland and put the Tigers up 2-1.

Auburn (34-22-1) will play second-seeded Southern Miss in an elimination game Saturday at 2 p.m. The Golden Eagles lost Friday’s first game to third-ranked Samford 4-2 in 10 innings. Penn plays Samford on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the winner’s bracket.

“It’s baseball and we have another chance to come play tomorrow,” Howell said. “We’re going to do everything we can to play our style of baseball and continue to fight and execute a little bit better than we did tonight.”

“This team has put in a lot of work for us,” Thompson said. “They’ve been happy. We won nine regional games in a row, which is tough. We’ve got to take it one at a time and see if we can find our way through nine innings or how many it takes to win a ballgame and find ourselves here on Sunday. That’s the goal.”

Jeff Shearer is a senior writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer