It had been a tough weekend for Auburn cleanup hitter Cooper McMurray going into Saturday's series finale against the No. 1-ranked University of Arkansas baseball team.
McMurray, a junior first baseman, came into the series batting .362, but he was 0 for 8 in the first two games with seven strikeouts.
The struggles at the plate ended for McMurray on Saturday when he reached base four times and drove in four runs to lead the No. 24 Tigers to an 8-6 victory in front of a record crowd of 5,087 at Plainsman Park in Auburn, Ala.
McMurray's three-run home run in the sixth inning put Auburn ahead 7-5.
"He was the difference for them," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said.
McMurray, who went 2 for 4 on Saturday, also had an RBI single and reached base on a walk and hit by pitch.
"McMurray really had a tough two days," Auburn Coach Butch Thompson said. "He really carried us 10 days before that.
"To see him at the end of the series come up and have a couple of [big] at-bats, a hit early and the backside [opposite field] homer, that just knocked the door down and created the big sixth inning."
Auburn scored six runs in the sixth inning against three Arkansas relievers after starter Mason Molina held the Tigers to one run in five innings.
Mason Maners hit a leadoff home run off Cooper Dossett after being down 1-2 in the count. Chris Stanfield reached on an infield single when Dossett fell trying to field the ball.
Gabe Gaeckle replaced Dossett and gave up a double to Cade Belyeu and walked Javon Hernandez and Cooper Weiss to score Stanfield.
Colin Fisher came in to pitch and got a groundout that scored Ike Irish, then struck out Bobby Peirce.
Fisher got ahead of McMurray 0-1 before he hit his ninth home run of the season to give the Tigers the lead. The ball just got over the 37-foot wall in left field.
Arkansas' bullpen came into the game with a 2.87 ERA through 94 innings this season.
"Just a couple of mistakes," Van Horn said of the sixth inning. "Cooper Dossett comes in and man, he throws two really good pitches. The count's 1-2 and then he threw it right down the middle and the guy hit it out of the park. Kind of shocks you a little bit. He just didn't locate the finish."
Gaeckle pitched for the second time in the series after having a 1-2-3 ninth inning of the Razorbacks' 1-0 victory Thursday night for his fifth save
"Gaeckle, he just got behind in the count and walked a couple of people," Van Horn said. "He hadn't been doing that. He only threw [14] pitches the other day and he had a couple of days to rest. He was ready to go. It just didn't happen for him today.
"I thought Fisher came in, tough situation. He just gave up a fly ball that turned into a three-run homer. Kind of a tough luck pitcher on that swing. But he gave us a chance to get back in it.
"[McMurray] hit it good, but it was a fly ball, just barely cleared the wall as it was coming down. That's the way it works when you're playing with quirky parks and it got us today."
Auburn's eight runs were the most allowed by Arkansas (19-3, 5-1 SEC) this season. The previous high by an opponent was in James Madison's 7-3 victory over the Razorbacks on Feb. 18.
The Tigers (15-8, 1-5) stopped Arkansas' winning streak at 15 games and overcame a 5-1 deficit going into the bottom of the sixth inning in ending their seven-game losing streak to the Razorbacks going back to 2022.
"Tough loss," Van Horn said. "We let a lead slip away. It's hard to recover when you give up six in one inning. We had plenty of chances to score today. We left a lot of runners on."
The Razorbacks, who had six hits and drew three walks, left 11 runners on base.
"We are swinging the bats better in my opinion," Van Horn said. "We did swing at too many pitches out of the zone. We've got to clean that up a little bit before this week.
"Just too many little missed opportunities to get one [run] here, maybe two there. We just didn't drive people in all the time.
"Credit to Auburn. They fought back after we had them on the ropes. But it really probably boiled down to a couple of free passes here and there and pitch counts getting up and a big swing."
Molina, a junior left-hander, held Auburn to 3 hits with 4 strikeouts, but he had 4 walks and hit a batter to run his pitch count up to 76.
The Tigers loaded the bases with one out in the fourth inning when Molina hit McMurray and walked Maners and Stanfield. But he got Deric Fabian on a popout and Hernandez on a flyout to strand the runners.
McMurray then had an RBI single in the fifth inning to cut Arkansas' lead to 4-1.
"He didn't get some close calls," Van Horn said of Molina having two walks in the fourth inning and one in the fifth. "Usually that doesn't help. The umpire a lot of times will not give you those if they see you out there frustrated.
"I think it was a good learning experience, but the fourth and fifth, there's just way too many pitches thrown. Too many wasted pitches not really close.
"Auburn didn't have to work a couple of times to get base runners on. It was a four-pitch walk. Five-pitch walk. Stuff like that. If he can clean that up, we can get seven [innings] out of him, because they didn't hit him."
Arkansas closed within 7-6 on Will Edmunson's RBI double in the seventh inning.
Irish's home run in the seventh inning pushed Auburn's lead to 8-6 and Will Cannon pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth for the Tigers.
The Razorbacks scored four times in the fourth inning, including a three-run home run by third baseman Jared Sprague-Lott, to take a 4-0 lead.
After Ben McLaughlin walked and Nolan Souza singled with one out, Sprague-Lott hit a 3-1 pitch from Joseph Gonzalez 400 feet over the left field fence. Edmunson followed with a walk, went to third base on a single by Peyton Stovall and scored on Kendall Diggs' double.
The Razorbacks went ahead 5-1 in the sixth inning when Stovall singled and scored on Diggs' triple.
Auburn, which lost to Arkansas 6-5 on Friday night, avoided a second consecutive SEC sweep after being outscored at No. 3 Vanderbilt by a combined 33-11 last weekend.
"I have to tell you, the emotions of our team and the effort, I could just see it all week and it's been tough," Thompson said. "We have been hurting, but they absolutely stayed in it, especially after not getting what they wanted in two one-run ball games."