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March 12, 2012

The Auburn baseball team hits the road for just the second time this season as it plays at South Alabama at 6:30pm on Tuesday at Stanky Field. Auburn brings a 10-7 mark into the game while South Alabama is 4-12.

Auburn, which had three solid outings from its starting pitching staff during its weekend series win over Belmont, will send Jon Luke Jacobs to the mound against South Alabama. The senior has had a fantastic start to the season and is 3-0 with a 1.37 ERA in three midweek starts. His 22 strike outs lead Auburn and his .154 batting average against is fourth in the SEC while his ERA checks in at fifth-best in the league.

South Alabama will counter with Dillon Buhrkuhl (0-2, 7.71).

Dan Glevenyak brings a team-high 10-game hitting streak into the contest while Creede Simpson (21), Garrett Cooper (16) and Ryan Tella (14) all join Glevenyak in brining hefty streaks of reaching base safely into the contest.

Auburn goes into the week leading the SEC in walks (91), sac bunts (19), steals (50) and steal attempts. The club is also second in the league in on base percentage (.429), hits (181) and triples (seven) and is third in team batting average (.319).

South Alabama is hitting .231 as a team and as averaging 4.75 runs per game while the pitching staff has a 4.53 ERA.

Following Tuesday's game Auburn will open SEC play at No. 12 Ole Miss on Friday.

JON LUKE: Is making his first career appearance against South Alabama.

ON THE MOUND: Zach Blatt (3.60 ERA) and Slade Smith (5.40) have the most mound experience on the team vs. South Alabama, each logging five full innings.

AT THE PLATE: Creede Simpson is 2-for-7 to account for the most plate appearances of anyone on the team against South Alabama while Cullen Wacker (2-for-5, .400) has the highest average.

RUN LIKE THE WIND
Auburn leads the nation with 50 stolen bases (in 67 attempts, 75 percent) and has surpassed what the team did in 58 games in 2011 ... Auburn's current pace of 2.94 steals per game has it ending the regular season with 164 steals ... The Auburn record for stolen bases in a season is 116 in 1974 and the team has eclipsed the century mark just two other times, in 2007 (105) and 1971 (101) ... The SEC record is 215 done by Tennessee in 63 games in 2000.

GOOD PITCHING WEEKEND
The Auburn pitching staff put together a 2.33 ERA during its weekend series win over Belmont, allowing 10 runs in 27 innings ... The three starters (Derek Varnadore, Will Kendall and Daniel Koger) combined for a 2.25 ERA with 15 strike outs in 20 innings.

SMALL BALL
Auburn has already recorded 10bunt base hits and a SEC-high 19 sacrifice bunts ... Bobby Andrews leads the team with three bunt base hits (he has eight hits overall) while Dan Glevenyak leads the club with six sac bunts ... The sac bunts total puts Glevenyak as the SEC leader, Andrews tied for second (four) and Jarred Smith (three) tied fof seventh in the SEC in individual stats.

TEAM LEADERS
Auburn goes into the week leading the SEC in walks (91), sac bunts (19), steals (50) and steal attempts (67) ... The club is also second in the league in on base percentage (.429), hits (181), triples (seven) and caught stealing (17).

SEC INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
Ryan Tella comes into the week the SEC leader in on base percentage (.554) and walks (18) ... Jay Gonzalez is the league leader in runs (20), triples (seven) and stolen bases (14) ... Creede Simpson is tied for the league lead in hits (29), steals (14), stolen base attempts (18) and caught stealing (four) ... Dan Glevenyak leads the SEC in sac bunts (six).

HITTING WITH MEN IN SCORING POSITION
Auburn is third in the SEC in batting average at .319 and is 66-for-220 (.300) with runners in scoring position, which is fifth in the SEC ... When Auburn has a runner on third and less than two out the team average goes up to .604 (32-for-53) which is the 10th-best average in the league and the fifth-most opportunities.

YAKETY-YAK, YAKETY-YAK
Dan Glevenyak is currently riding a team-best 10-game hitting streak (17-39, .436, 10 runs scored) and has five multi-hit games during the streak and six on the season ... Last week he had a night to remember in the Capital City Classic, winning MVP honors after driving in a career-high three RBIs on a career-high three hits to go along with his fifth sac bunt of the season.

CREEDE CRUISING
Creede Simpson has been on a tear over the last 10 games, hitting .450 (18-40) with three doubles, a team-high 11 RBIs, a team-high 10 steals and 10 runs scored, which is second only to Jay Gonzalez' 13 ... The senior second baseman has reached base safely in every game this season and in 21 straight dating to last year and is currently among the top 10 in the league in average (.439, 4th), on base percentage (.513, 5th), hits (29, T-1st), RBI (15, T-9th), doubles (7, T-3rd) and steals (14, T-1st).

TELLA ME ABOUT IT
Ryan Tella has reached base safely in 14 straight games and has been on base in all but one game this season, the second game of the year ... He is currently tied with Creede Simpson for the team lead with 10 multi-hit games and two of the three games he is hitless in he drew multiple walks ... He comes into the week among the SEC leaders in batting average (.410, 7th), on base percentage (.554, 1st), hits (25, 5th), walks (18, 1st) and steals (7, 4th).

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