AUBURN — After notching a league-best 11 hits in the four-game stretch last week, Auburn's Ike Irish is now 2-for-2 on SEC Freshman of the Week awards. The freshman and designated hitter has been dominant behind the plate, providing multiple hits in each of the four games against North Alabama and USC, leading the Tigers to a 3-0-1 record during the week.
In his seven-game career on the Plains, Irish has hit below .500 just once and kicked off his run going 3-for-4 at the plate against UAB with two runs and one RBI. The Tigers run-ruled UAB and headed into an abnormal weekend series with USC, in which the location was changed from Los Angeles to Auburn following weather conditions.
Auburn started things off with a 5-3 win, with Irish going 2-for-3 at the plate in the Friday night victory.
"I thought our guys did a nice job," head coach Butch Thompson said of Friday's victory. "We hung around, had a couple of big hits. Everybody competed. Everybody played their role and gave us something. It was just a good team win for us tonight."
The freshman finished the series going 6-for-10 in the final two games, with two RBIs, one win and one tie on Sunday.
Through the first seven games, Irish leads the SEC in batting average(.586) and hits(17), while he is second and fourth in the country in each category. Irish is the first Auburn player since 1993 to record 17 hits in the first seven games of a season.
Irish will look to continue his hot start when the No. 13 Tigers(5-1-1) welcome Florida A&M to Plainsman Park on Wednesday, with the first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. CST. This will kick off a stretch of nine games in 12 days for Auburn, culminating in a weekend series with Southeastern Louisiana.
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