Winning five of its past six games led Auburn coach John Pawlowski to believe his team had turned a corner this season.

Nine lackluster innings against South Alabama, ending in a 7-1 loss Tuesday night, let him know there’s still work to be done.

“We just didn’t play very well on all fronts,” Pawlowski said. “I know our team is very disappointed. Nothing has come easy for this team this year.”

The visiting Jaguars (21-16) took a 2-1 lead on a Brent Tanner single in the third inning, extended it to 5-1 on a two-out, three-run home run by Brad Hook in the fifth and got their final margin on an RBI groundout by Trey Sorrells and RBI single by Hunt Griffith in the sixth.

Auburn (20-16) yielded six of the seven runs with two outs and still found a way to strand 14 South Alabama baserunners on the night.

The Tigers never mounted much of a threat on offense, with their only run coming on a Kevin Patterson RBI single that scored Dan
Gamache in the second.

Auburn managed seven hits — all but one singles — and recorded 15 flyball outs.

“I didn’t think our approach was real good at the plate,” Pawlowski said. “We never really had a chance to get anything going tonight.
Tough lessons to learn, and we’ve got to keep learning and moving forward.”

Griffith, who attended Auburn for a semester three years ago but transferred after being cut during walk-on tryouts for the baseball team, reached base five times on the night, going 3-for-3 with two walks.

Taylor White, Nolan Earley, Jordan Patterson, Tanner and Jeff DeBlieux each chipped in two more hits in support of Collin Blankenship (2-1), who gave up no runs on four hits over four innings to get the win.

Bradley Hendrix (1-1) took the loss in his first start of the season for the Tigers, giving up two runs on four hits in 2 2/3 innings, Patterson went 3-for-4 and Cullen Wacker was 2-for-4.

The Tigers take on Ole Miss in a three-game set starting Thursday, trying to keep up their recent hot streak in the SEC.

Auburn enters the second half of conference play in fourth place — but only a game out of first — in the SEC West and eighth overall in the conference.

“We’ve got to flush it out pretty quickly and be ready to go,” Pawlowski said. “But I believe in this team, and they know what’s at stake.
They know where we’re at in the big picture.”
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