Creede Simpson’s fingers flickered on the handle of his bat as Clemson’s Tomas Cruz stared him down, one strike away from sending the visitors to their ninth NCAA Super Regional.

The 20-year-old Simpson, born and raised in the shadows of Plainsman Park, had no idea he was about to hit one of the most memorable home runs in the program’s history, one that would ultimately send Auburn past Clemson, 11-10, and on to a winner-take-all regional championship game tonight at 6 p.m.

Faced with two strikes, two outs, two runners on base and Auburn trailing by a run, Simpson was just trying to keep the game going with a little contact.

“I was just trying to get the barrel on the ball,” Simpson said. “I knew I had a great opportunity, I didn’t want to waste it.”

He sure didn’t.

Simpson belted Cruz’s slider out and over the big fence in left-center field for what ultimately turned out to be Sunday’s game-winner. The blast didn’t end Auburn’s day — which began at 10:45 a.m. and had a brief intermission after it eliminated Southern Miss, 17-8 — but Iron Man Austin Hubbard did just enough in the bottom of the inning to seal the game’s place in Auburn lore.

“That is my baseball highlight,” said Hubbard, who worked the game’s final 4 2/3 innings to collect the victory. “The crowd, Creede’s home run, the way we battled.

“And I hope I get to make another (one) tomorrow.”

Simpson’s at-bat was as dramatic as it was improbable.

His only activity in the previous three games came earlier in the day, when he entered as a pinch runner for Trent Mummey long after the Tigers bludgeoned the Golden Eagles for four home runs and nine extra-base hits in an offensive awakening. And he was seated on the bench through the first six and a half innings against Clemson before coach John Pawlowski summoned him to replace Mummey in center field.

Mummey, who has been hampered by a sore quadriceps muscle, labored down the line on a groundout in the previous half-inning and Pawlowski said he’d seen enough. Mummey made it all the way out to center before he saw Simpson tailing him. Mummey was visibly upset, jogging slowly off the field before slamming his glove against the back wall of the dugout.

“I’m not going to play somebody if I don’t think they’re 100 percent,” Pawlowski said of Mummey, who went 5-for-9 with four doubles and a three-run home run in Sunday’s games. “I just felt at that point we needed Creede in there.”

Simpson didn’t disappoint, of course, and perhaps saved a run when Clemson threatened in the eighth inning. With two outs, Hubbard hung a slider to John Hinson, who sent a blast to right-center field that Simpson needed every last step to catch up with and corral for the third out.

“That ball was hit in the gap and Creede ran that ball down,” Pawlowski said. “Creede stepped up in a big way for us.”

He wasn’t the only player who stared Auburn’s fate square in the face, as Cruz retired Kevin Patterson and Casey McElroy with four pitches to get the first two outs of the ninth.

Second baseman Justin Bryant walked on five pitches and then advanced to third when Justin Fradejas, also down to his final strike, blooped a single into shallow center field. That hit nearly ended Auburn’s season, but second baseman Mike Freeman let the ball carom off his glove.

“I had a good look at it,” Freeman said. “That stuff happens in baseball.”

So does what happened to Simpson, whose blast made up for all the wrongs that happened in Clemson’s seven-run fifth inning, which erased Auburn’s early 5-1 lead with hit after hit.

Hubbard relieved Slade Smith in the fifth and admittedly didn’t have his best stuff. His first pitch was promptly blasted out of the park by Hinson and he kept a largely pro-Auburn, capacity crowd on the edge of its seats all the way to the end.

“Austin Hubbard, as I’ve said before, is the guy you want out there in big situations,” Pawlowski said. “Nothing amazes me about Austin Hubbard.”

Perhaps his final escape act of his Auburn career occurred in the ninth, when he let the first two batters hit singles, let one run cross after a wild pitch and put the tying run on third.

After he forced Addison Johnson to feebly ground to first for the second out and then walked Freeman, Hubbard threw a nasty slider to Jeff Schaus, who popped out to complete one of Auburn’s most dramatic comebacks in program history.

“That,” Simpson said, “was an awesome game.”

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