April 19, 2008
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Caleb Cotham struck out a career-high 11 batters in 8.1 innings to lead Vanderbilt to an 8-2 win over Auburn Saturday afternoon at Hawkins Field.
The game was delayed for over two hours due to rain and finally got started at 2:17 p.m. The Commodores improved to 27-11 overall and 9-7 in the Southeastern Conference, while the Tigers fell to 23-17 and 7-10 in league play.
Cotham (6-2) held Auburn scoreless until the sixth, snapping a 12.2 inning scoreless streak. He gave up two runs on six hits with just one walk before being relieved after giving up a one-out double in the ninth.
Shea Robin’s RBI single in the second gave the Commodores an early 1-0 lead. Ryan Flaherty added a two-out two-run double in the fifth to extend the lead to 3-0.
Auburn got on the board in the sixth when Matt Hall singled, advanced to second on a groundout and scored on Justin Hargett’s RBI single up the middle off of Cotham.
The Dores then blew the game open with a four-run sixth, the key hit being a two run double by Pedro Alvarez. Robin had a RBI single for the first run and Alex Feinberg added a RBI single of his own for the second run. Alvarez capped things off with a two-out double off the wall in left-center to make it 7-1.
Feinberg added a RBI double in the eighth, scoring David Macias to make it 8-1.
The Tigers scored a run in the ninth on a RBI single by Hunter Morris to close out the scoring.
Macias, Feinberg, Ryan Flaherty and Shea Robin each had two hits to lead Vanderbilt’s attack.
The teams will play the rubber game of the series tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. Junior righthander Nick Christiani (4-2, 3.57 ERA) will throw for VU, while Auburn will counter with freshman righthander Bradley Hendrix (1-0, 4.74 ERA).
Auburn 000 001 001 -2 7 0
Vanderbilt 010 024 01x -8 11 1
Luckie, Hurst (6), Crawford (8) and Jenkins, Caldwell. Cotham, Bierman (9) and Robin. W- Cotham 6-2, L-Luckie 4-4. Sv- None. HR: AUB: None. VU: None.
